Election 2020
The day is November 4th, 2020; all the polls have closed from west to east. All across America, Americans held their breath in anticipation and worry as they sat watching television to watch the close election unfolding before their eyes. Preceding that night when the election would come to a grand conclusion was a long, arduous campaign marked by division and Covid-19. The night unfolding as the votes were counted in the early hours of the morning showed an election closer than any forecaster had predicted. In those early hours on November 4th, it seemed to be a repeat of 2016, with an error in the polling, Florida being called for Trump by a relatively comfortable marking (3%), a lead in North Carolina and Georgia, and the states formerly known as the blue wall. The trio of states of what used to be a democratic stronghold in the upper Midwest, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, seemed destined to fracture once again. The leads in those various states ranged from the upper 100,000s to over a million votes. The same case in other crucial parts of the country where Trump held a lead of over 1,000,000 votes in Georgia. The only indication of a different story was an earlier declaration of Arizona in favor of Biden by Fox, not verified by other sources. The night progressed, and the leads started to shrink and shrink; the Trump campaign looking at the states as each hour went by, saw what was once massive leads begin to evaporate before their very eyes. In a frantic attempt to halt the vote count in the wee hours of the morning at 2:30 am, the president declared victory in the contest and pleaded for the “fraudulent votes” to stop being counted in the crucial swing states. His attempt to halt the count was to no avail as his victory prospect collapsed as Biden took the lead in Michigan the following day. The lead vanished in Wisconsin, then Nevada, then the final nail in the coffin in Pennsylvania. The campaign filed various lawsuits with claims of mass fraud that affected the campaign results. The “mass fraud” on a level not seen before in favor of the democrats was completed as a concerted effort filled with chicanery to steal the election from President Trump. Many believe and still believe these claims as their opinions altered by various questions “How could they count after Election Day?” “How did those massive leads vanish?” These are some of the questions asked by those who still believe the claims of fraud. Now the question arrives on this; was there a concerted effort to steal the election from Donald Trump and hand it to Joe Biden? The answer is simple, no.
The Counting
Prior to Election Day, various states warned of a “red mirage” effect, an illusion of a grandiose victory for republicans as the same day vote was counted first and none of the mail votes had been input. Given the extraordinary circumstances of the election, where millions voted by mail to evade infection by Covid, this was bound to happen. A transition ensues; how could most of the ballots be for Biden? Simple, the Biden camp pushed early voting and mail-in while Trump and his campaign pushed same-day voting.
The counting of the ballots is something else frequently called into question by various people. How were the votes counted beyond November 3rd, spilling over to various other days? The U.S Supreme Court ruled that mail-in ballots received up to 3 days before Election Day were to be counted. Furthermore, in multiple states, such as in Pennsylvania, poll workers could not touch mail-in ballots before Election Day, thus leading to a long counting process. According to the PA Department of State, more than 3,000,000 ballots were requested for the 2020 election, of which 2.6 million were returned to be counted. These 2.6 million ballots dwarfed Trump’s lead of 1.5 million or 11% before the mail was tallied.
Voter Fraud and Litigation
To examine cases of what the Trump campaign claimed to be scores of deceased people voting for Biden, democratic voters voting twice, or suitcases of fake ballots being counted, fewer than 475 cases of more than 25 million votes cast in the swing states. ( AZ, PA, MI, WI, GA, NV).
The issues over the 2020 election were litigated across various courts across the nation. Of the 62 election lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign, 61 were lost, and his own court appointees decided many. Even more so, after three recounts in Georgia (CNN), and two recounts in Wisconsin’s most populated counties (Madison and Dane), Biden’s lead was affirmed and, in the case of Wisconsin, increased by 132, according to Politico. Furthermore, exhaustive recounts in Arizona yielded the same results. The latest recount in Arizona concluded in September of 2021, 10 months after the election; the audit and recount conducted by Cyber Ninjas (funded by Trump supporters) affirmed Biden’s victory, according to NPR.org.
Historical Basis
Although in the various crucial swing states, the election was close nationwide, the popular vote margin clocked to above 7 million. Comparing that to close contests in modern American history, 1960, 1968, 1976, 2000, and 2004, its margin was not nearly as close. In 1960, the Kennedy/ Nixon race was decided by a margin of little over one hundred thousand votes or 0.1% popular vote. Various close states, such as Missouri and Illinois, decided by under a percentage. In 2000, a margin of 500,000 votes separated both Bush and Gore, and the electoral college was determined by the state of Florida by 537 votes. (All according to 538).
Solutions
Both sides have introduced national and state bills to attempt to amend the voting system with opposing viewpoints. On the federal level, introduced in 2021, the John Lewis voting act expands the government’s authority over elections, opens more polling places, and requires public officials to announce voting changes at least 180 days before the election, according to congress.gov. On the Republican side, laws passed to limit mail-in balloting, create voter ID laws, and shorten the early in-person voting period. (According to Washington Post). In Wisconsin, like in other cases, mail-in drop boxes have been mostly prohibited to promote what republicans claim to be fraud-free elections.
2022 and Onward
The dangerous lies of the stolen election cast doubt upon what is the greatest experiment conceived of by man and are detrimental to our society. These lies lead to the darkest corners of extremism that nothing good has come from it, and nothing has. What these lies generated was an attack on the capitol on January 6th, intending to stop the certification of a duly elected president. We, the people of the United States, must hold those who perpetrate these lies accountable and not allow them to win in their respective primaries and hold office. We must remain ever vigilant. As Ben Franklin said when leaving the constitutional convention, “A republic if we can keep it.”
References
- https://hwkfsh.medium.com/how-red-mirage-shaped-the-2020-election-narrative-81e404d2a58b
- https://www.npr.org/2020/10/19/922411176/supreme-court-rules-pennsylvania-can-count-ballots-received-after-election-day
- https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/03/democrats-more-mail-in-ballots-pennsylvania-433951
- https://apnews.com/article/voter-fraud-election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-7fcb6f134e528fee8237c7601db3328f
- https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/politics/elections/2021/01/06/trumps-failed-efforts-overturn-election-numbers/4130307001/
- https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/07/politics/georgia-recount-recertification-biden/index.html
- https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/29/wisconsin-biden-trump-results-441122
- https://www.270towin.com/historical-presidential-elections/timeline/
- https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/4
- https://www.npr.org/2022/07/08/1100696685/wisconsin-supreme-court-ballot-drop-boxes-disability-assistance
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