And It’s Starting Already. . . .
By DEACON MIKE MANNO, JD
One of President Trump’s concerns about the upcoming election, and echoed by numerous Republicans, is that it is likely that the outcome of the election might not be known for days or weeks after the balloting — and even longer if counting and certification of results are subject to litigation. The result, they argue, could be a magnified replay of Bush-Gore 2000.
Unless the election is so one-sided that the winner is obvious, there is probably merit in that claim. We, along with other journals, have explored those possibilities (see my column “Overwhelm and Conquer” in the September 10 issue) at length and I’ve even had the Heritage Foundation’s election expert, Hans von Spakovsky, among others, on my radio program to explain the dangers and history of election fraud.
What we’ve discovered so far is that election fraud is real and in some areas can be widespread although those simple statements — fraud and widespread — are nearly universally ignored by many including the mainstream media. As a result, attempts to manipulate this year’s election results are being downplayed while such efforts continue to play out behind the scenes.
The allegations from the political right center on mail-in and absentee balloting. They are different, as most people now know. Absentee ballots are requested by the voter, mailed to him, and returned by him. Mail-in ballots are those that are unrequested but simply sent to all registered voters. And while absentee ballots are safer, both types present their own problems which we’ve addressed in the past.
Additionally, those on the progressive left are now claiming that the U.S. Postal Service is being hijacked by the Trump administration to slow down or to prevent timely delivery of ballots. Although the claims might sound serious, my radio expert, David Ditch of the Heritage Foundation, found little to support them.
And so now we have the perfect political storm: what appears to be a close election; the post office under fire; pressure on some to use the mail due to COVID-19; and the icing on the cake, a vacancy on the Supreme Court. All of this is now coming together to foster the fear that the election might be decided by mailed ballots suddenly arriving days after the election which may or may not be counted by local officials, but will surely be the impetus for what could be protracted litigation.
And it has already started.
A Michigan court has ruled that mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day must be counted even if received up to 14 days after the election, even though the state law requires mail-in ballots to be received by 8 p.m. on the day of the election. That means that election officials must continue counting ballots that arrive up to two weeks after the election.
“In light of delays attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic, mail delivery has become significantly compromised, and the risk for disenfranchisement when a voter returns an absent voter ballot by mail is very real,” the judge wrote.
“Applying the strict, 8:00 p.m. ballot receipt deadline on absent voter ballots imposes too great a restriction for the upcoming general election. Some flexibility must be built into the deadline in order to account for the significant inability of mail to arrive on what would typically be a reliable, predictable schedule,” she determined.
Interestingly, the court’s opinion reads like it was a settlement agreed to by the parties. The principal plaintiff is something called The Michigan Alliance for Retired Americans, which is the organization protecting the rights of retired union members. The main defendant is the Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who would have been represented by the office of the Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel.
The court’s opinion made “factual findings” of “undisputed facts” as if there were no opponent present, such as: “The documentary evidence in this case reveals that the incidences of voter fraud and absentee ballot fraud are minimal and that the fears of the same are largely exaggerated.” Of course that is simply not true, as von Spakovsky had outlined in a report on fraudulent elections which was summarized in this column (August 13, “How Risky Is Vote-by-Mail?”) or in Spakovsky’s 2012 book, Who’s Counting?: How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk that he co-authored with the National Review’s John Fund.
It was also undisputed that “the mail system is currently fraught with delays and uncertainty in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.” While Michigan law limits the number of people who can assist a voter casting an absentee ballot — which is a protection against vote harvesting — the court found that during this time period a voter may select anyone to help, thus opening the door to harvesting.
So my question is: Who was representing the other side? I remind you of another one of Nessel’s cases which was written about here. The case involved a Catholic adoption agency that partnered with the state to place children but did not adopt to same-sex couples. When the ACLU sued the state over the issue, Nessel colluded with the ACLU to “settle” with a prepared consent decree that changed Michigan law which had protected Catholic agencies.
When the adoption agency discovered Nessel’s duplicity, it sued and a federal district judge, besides ripping Nessel, voided the original order (see “A Faustian Bargain Revisited,” October 3, 2019).
In Washington State, a court determined that it was easy to conclude that actions of the postal service were “an intentional effort on the part of the current administration to disrupt and challenge the legitimacy of upcoming local, state, and federal elections.” As a result it issued a lengthy list of actions that the postal service was prohibited from doing. You see, Mr. Trump’s collusion with the postal service was apparently just as severe as his collusion with Russia!
And in Pennsylvania the Supreme Court has now ruled that local election boards are allowed to set up satellite drop-off venues for absentee ballots even though the state law only authorizes drop-offs at the board’s main office. It also ordered them to count ballots received up to three days after the election if postmarked by the day of the election; however, “ballots received within this period that lack a postmark or other proof of mailing, or for which the postmark or other proof of mailing is illegible, will be presumed to have been mailed by Election Day unless a preponderance of the evidence demonstrates that it was mailed after Election Day.”
Now throw in the Supreme Court vacancy and you see how important it is for the Republicans to confirm a ninth member of the court that presumably could cut through all this fog. And here is why they need to confirm by or shortly after the election: Arizona may flip the election on them.
In that state the incumbent Republican senator, Martha McSally, is in a tight race with former astronaut Democrat Mark Kelly. McSally was appointed senator in 2019 to fill the balance of what was the late John McCain’s term. Thus if she loses, as soon as the election results are certified Kelly will be sworn-in, and if the Senate confirmation is still pending he would be a “no” vote.
Just as an ironic side note, McSally lost two elections in which she was leading on Election Day. In 2012 she led by a few hundred votes in a congressional race but as the days went by more Democratic ballots were found and she ultimately lost. In 2018 she led in her election for the Senate on election night, but saw that lead evaporate over the next few days and six days later conceded.
Someday someone will write a book about all of this. No one in the future will believe it; especially if the wrong side wins the election, because then this history will be canceled.
(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him every Thursday at 10 a.m. central, on Faith On Trial on IowaCatholicRadio.com.)
