Election integrity is fundamental to our freedoms
As I was re-reading last week’s issue of The Smoky Mountain News and about the Juneteenth celebrations in the mountains, I started thinking about the upcoming July 4 holiday and of the freedoms Americans take for granted. As a white man I won’t presume to know what Juneteenth means to Black Americans, but there’s little doubt that their experience of being an American is much different from mine.
Since emancipation and since the new laws enacted because of the Civil Rights movement, though, one common thread we can now all embrace is the very basic act of voting. It’s heartbreaking to realize that our Black brothers and sisters — until 60 years ago — were still fighting for the basic rights we white men have had since the founding of the republic some 250 years ago. Our democracy, imperfect as it is and has been, at least now upholds that basic right to vote for every one of its citizens.
Sort of. This past weekend in Texas, the state Republican Party endorsed a measure calling President Joe Biden’s election illegitimate. Here’s an excerpt from the Texas Standard:
On Thursday, the Republican Party of Texas Permanent Platform Committee advanced a resolution claiming the 2020 election “violated” the Constitution.
“We reject the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election, and we hold that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States,” part of the resolution says.
Biden received about 7 million more votes than Donald Trump. Biden also won 306 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 232. Numerous election audits have found no evidence of widespread fraud or vote tampering. Despite these facts, many are still unconvinced of the legitimacy of the 2020 election.
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Here’s a quote from the Texas Standard from one of the GOP convention attendees: “There’s no way in hell Biden got 81 million votes,” said Mary Jo Bloomquist, a resident of Granbury. “Are you kidding me?”
I’ve spent my life reporting in mostly small communities. In each of those towns and counties I’ve known and worked with employees of the local boards of elections, people of both major political parties. I’m acquainted with election volunteers. These are people who would consider it against their personal moral code of conduct to in any way participate in voter fraud. I suspect that’s the same in most communities throughout this country. You work or volunteer as an election official because you recognize it as one of the most important civic duties of our republic, one of the basic rights that sets this country apart. You’re not there to sway the outcome of an election.
Mistakes happen, but a grand scheme by an organized cabal to overturn the 2020 election? Thankfully, that did not happen. Not in the USA.
At least not yet. As has been reported in many media outlets, some GOP leaders who still doubt the results of the 2020 election are recruiting volunteers to monitor voting sites throughout the country. In some states GOP leaders who still doubt the 2020 election results are setting up systems that will allow them to challenge future election results they don’t like.
I’m hopeful all of this will be for naught. We’ve been reminded by the January 6 hearings that Donald Trump knew he had lost but refused to listen to the truth and deliberately tried to get state leaders and Vice President Mike Pence to do his bidding to illegally overturn the results.
As we mark our independence during these summer weeks, let’s remember that we are Americans first, not members of a political party. We have more in common as human beings than we disagree about as members of one political party or another.
Many Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians and independents lost their elections in 2020. After various recounts and some very tight races, all of them — except one — accepted defeat and carried on with their lives. For the good of the country, Trump should do the same and quit crying foul. If he doesn’t, I fear the fights after our next national election in 2024.
(Scott McLeod can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
