If you're a regular reader, you know that I'm a big fan of asking candidates where their proposed solutions have worked before, when used to address whatever problem they say they're trying to fix.
For example, I would always ask a leftist proposing tax increases (like, you know, Joe Biden), where the act of increasing tax rates has ever actually increased tax revenues. I'd ask where cutting defense spending has ever maintained our defensive posture. That sort of thing.
In November, there is supposed to be an election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. In any other year, we would be vigorously polling registered voters and talking about "swing states" and "margins of error" and all that, leading up to where we went to the polls on Election Day and pulled a lever, figuratively or not.
Now, I'm sure you know, unless you've been under a rock for a while, that the polling in the 2016 presidential election campaign turned out to be horrendously wrong, as exhibited by the fact that Hillary Clinton is mercifully off in the woods somewhere, as opposed to being president. Oh, yeah, and by the fact that the influence-peddling Clinton Foundation is a dried-up shell of its former self, with no actual influence to peddle.
I think we can comfortably say that the disparity between the polling and the 2016 election result had much to do with the press's vilification of candidate Trump, leading people to lie to the polls, lest they be bashed for holding a view contrary to what the press and the left (but I repeat myself) wanted you to think.
And it's more so now, with lots of us who are going to vote for President Trump's reelection simply hanging up on polling calls, or lying about all manner of things we're asked. Frankly, I can't be sure that the call isn't actually coming from some Antifa thug who is ready to fire-bomb my house if I don't give the "right" answer ... can you be sure?
It was never that Trump drew a lot of former Democrats in 2016; that didn't end up being as big a factor as the overall turnout for Hillary, or lack thereof. Trump voters were enthusiastic, and a lot of people stayed home.
Or didn't vote. That's not always the same thing, and that's the point.
The leftist Democrat legislature of the once-great State of Nevada just rammed through a bill, signed by the leftist Democrat governor, essentially mandating mail-out ballots for everyone. Now, "mail-out" is not the same as "mail-in" (absentee), the good and valid system by which you can request that a ballot be sent to your registered address, get validated as a registered voter, and have it sent to you.
Nope, not good enough. Nevada now joins other states which have blown up the chain of custody that preserved the integrity of our election system. For 200-plus years, there was a process -- you registered to vote, demonstrated your residence and age, and then showed up at an approved polling site with people who would look you up in the rolls, confirm your registration, and point you back to a machine or paper ballot where you voted in private.
The actual votes were right there in the polling place, and when the voting time ended, the local board of elections, overseen by both parties, would tabulate the ballots, secure in the knowledge that the person who was supposed to cast the ballot did indeed do so, at least theoretically. More importantly, that system imposed a validation chain -- you had to register, show up, have a name on the polling list, and then your vote ended up in the container.
Nevada and its fellow states have now made that scary. I, for one, do not know how many ballots will go out to people who no longer live at the registered address (hopefully the USPS has a "no forward under any circumstance" rule). I don't know how many will go to the deceased, may they rest in peace but their votes not be counted.
I do know that in Los Angeles, there are 10% more registered voters than citizens of age, meaning that at least ten percent of the votes in LA this November will be invalid, if the city even has the ability to distinguish them -- and if they don't, that's its own problem.
There is an ongoing special congressional election in New York that is hopelessly dragging out, not because it's so close but because they can't accurately count the ballots. You want to see that on a national level?
So how can we trust the 2020 presidential election?
I can't. Well, if Donald Trump is reelected, I suppose we can, because it just means that despite the incredible forces lined up against him, the nation voted against the press, the rioters and looters, Nancy and Chuck and Schiff and the rest, and even their contemptible actions like ballot harvesting weren't enough.
But if not ...
Let's face it, Joe Biden is generating the enthusiasm of a dormant sloth. He can't answer a question; the press don't even ask him challenging questions on the rare occasions he takes any. You cannot convince me that in a free election with only legitimate voters, he'd win a single state. He stands for nothing, and his cognitive skills have decayed into something pathetic.
So if he were to win, and ballot harvesting is allowed, can anyone legitimately assure me that there wasn't massive voter fraud? I mean, the LA election board doesn't appear to be doing anything about the tens of thousands of expired, incorrect or deceased registrations on their rolls. So where are those ballots going to be mailed? And who in the city government is going to assure the nation that only legitimate votes were counted?
Think of it -- we know that over ten percent of LA's registrations are incorrect, but they're going to mail them anyway. That means that on Election Day, every single one of the millions of votes has to be validated, right? And they won't be, we know that.
That tells me that I can have not a shred of faith in the integrity of the 2020 presidential election, and I'm concerned that this is the future as well. None of this is being done for an appropriate reason; the mail-out process is meant to get a bunch of ballots out in circulation to allow Democrats to mass-vote, corruptly.
What happens if Biden is elected because of that, and mail-out balloting is claimed to be unconstitutional (it might be) and the election has to go to the Supreme Court? And the Court invalidates the election? Who is president then? That case will make Bush v. Gore look like a traffic citation.
Mail-out balloting has simply not worked, and it is not going to work in 2020, and not work in a big way. Ask your candidate where it has ever worked.
I'm scared. I don't like the way things are starting to play out, and I think you should be just as concerned.
Then ask why the media are not. You won't like the answer.
Copyright 2020 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here? There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com, and after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around. Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton
Like what you read here? There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com, and after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around. Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton
