Count Until We Win

Democratic “Strategery” to foil honest elections

Here we go again. Another Republican candidate went to bed with a clear lead on the night of the election and for multiple nights after that. Still, the counting continued and continued and continued. Eventually, to no one’s surprise, the Democrats snatched a victory from the jaws of an apparent defeat.

I took statistics in a graduate program more than fifty years ago. It is theoretically possible to flip a coin a hundred times and have it come up heads every time, but it’s not likely. Endless vote counting is like a child dropping a piece of bread with jelly. The jelly always lands on the bottom, and given enough time, the Democrats always win the election.

This year, the local issue is a race for a North Carolina Supreme Court Seat. It took more than a week for that to flip. California has egregious examples every two years. Three Republicans thought they had won U. S. congressional seats, but the counting continued, and votes “were cured” so Democrats could be declared the winners. One case took a week, and another took three weeks. The third took almost a month.

A North Carolina columnist was worried that the conspiracy theorists would start ranting about the way the counting was being done. She’s wrong. It is not a conspiracy. It is a blatant, open strategy.

The target should be one and only one vote by every legitimate voter. That includes every living citizen of voting age regardless of sex, color, or religion unless they have been individually disqualified because of a conviction for a legal offense.

You will notice that I mentioned “living citizens.” That phrase is so self-evident that I am angry I must say it that way. Only those who intend to cheat would question it. There is, sadly, a joke in many cities about a relative who was a lifelong Republican voter who became a Democratic after he died. North Carolinians voted heavily in favor of limiting voting to citizens. That shouldn’t even be a question.

In the old South, the Dixiecrats used endless tricks to keep blacks from registering. Now, they are trying to keep the voting rolls overloaded so they can create ballots or otherwise vote as these dubious registrants.

In countries where literacy is an issue, voters often have their thumbs dunked in ink to show they have voted. This method ensures they can’t vote twice. It sometimes requires great courage to vote when opposition groups tell people not to vote.

We don’t put ink on thumbs, but Voter ID is a basic method to reduce fraud. I lose all respect for any “political commentator” who goes along with the argument that Voter ID is designed to restrict minority voting. I constantly see my black neighbors showing ID for any number of reasons. They have no more problems doing so than my white neighbors. There is “that word” we are not supposed to use about black people. It is a synonym for “ignorant.” I am furious and tired of the outrageous argument that Voter ID can’t be used because BIPOC people are not equally capable of procuring an ID. Polling indicates they are also offended.

I grew up in Maryland. There were close and honest elections, but not at the same time. State-wide elections are those for President, Governor, and U.S. Senate. The pattern would always be the same if any of those were close. For some reason, Baltimore City would have difficulty counting or reporting their numbers. The city was more Democratic than the rest of the state. The question was – How much more? The city would wait until everyone else had reported, and it would know what number to provide to give the Democratic candidate the victory.

The 1994 Gubernatorial race was the classic case. That was the year Newt Gingrich led the Republicans to their first control of the House of Representatives in decades. It was a major Republican year. Ellen Sauerbrey came within 6,000 votes of Democrat Parris Glendening in the race for Governor. The numbers in Baltimore City were at least suspicious. Her attempt to overcome the suspected problems were frustrated in court when:

Anne Arundel Circuit Court Judge Raymond G. Thieme Jr. rejected Sauerbrey’s claims, saying that while the Maryland Republican Party’s investigation of the election presented “serious problems in Baltimore City”, Sauerbrey presented no “clear and convincing” proof of election fraud.

Here is where the media constantly shows its colors. They claim their role is to “speak truth to power.” They should complain when there is the slightest possibility of shenanigans in elections. Instead, editorialists always seem to favor any position that helps the Democrats. In Maryland, the Democrats are overwhelmingly powerful. Media instead tells the Republicans to accept the results of corrupt counts. That is a large part of why circulation and ratings are crashing. When you help the powerful to pollute the election process, we have no reason to listen to you or pay for your services.

The 2000 Bush v. Gore Presidential election was a primary example of a case where Democrats were angry that they couldn’t keep counting. Gore would have won the election if he had won his home state of Tennessee. He didn’t. Instead, the Florida Supreme Court and Dade County kept the count going and going. Finally, the U. S. Supreme Court shut it down. To this day, Democrats will tell you that Bush and the court stole the 2000 election because the counting was stopped. But let a Republican complain about prolonged counting anywhere? No way!

Let me be blunt. I give no credence to any news organization or journalist that tells me that Republicans are trying to keep minorities from voting by enforcing voter ID. I support any measure to ensure ballot security and that every eligible living citizen can vote precisely once. I will support anything that keeps them from voting and anything that erases their vote by allowing a phony vote to override an honest vote.