'Election reflections'

Letter to the editor November 19 to 25

Posted 11/18/20

Letter to the editor November 19 to 25

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'Election reflections'

Letter to the editor November 19 to 25

Posted

Election reflections

The other day I was astounded to overhear someone say that it seemed like Pennsylvania Democrats were simply producing more and more ballots as needed to counter Trump’s early lead in the state. But this so-called “blue shift” wasn’t suspicious. It had been widely predicted and for obvious reasons.

Not wanting to risk exposure to Covid by voting on Election Day, some 1.8 million Democrats requested absentee ballots. Only 700,000 Republicans made the same request. These heavily Democratic absentee ballots weren’t included in the early count because the Republican-controlled state legislature refused to let poll workers process them until Election Day. In many counties, overworked staff didn’t even start to count absentee ballots until after the polls closed, sometimes not until the following day. When these valid, on-time absentee ballots were eventually included in the count, it became clear that Biden carried the state by more than 60,000 votes. 

Trump has long made it clear that he wouldn’t accept election results unless he was declared the winner. He’s claimed election fraud but hasn’t supplied any evidence. Election officials in all states, both Democrat and Republican alike, have said the election was fair. The Department of Homeland Security called it “the most secure in history.” And consider this: All across the country, Republicans had a very good night. They picked up seats in many state legislatures and even flipped seats in the House. As the Republican Attorney General of Arizona noted, “People voted for Republicans down ballot, but they didn’t vote for President Trump... that’s the reality.”

One fact that should chill every patriotic American is that the Trump camp reached out to Republican state legislators to see if they could be induced to certify slates of Trump even though the President lost the popular vote in the state. There’s language in the Constitution that might permit this, but the day politicians start canceling elections is the day we become a failed state. 

Bruce Ferguson
Callicoon Center, NY

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