I watched Brit Hume on Fox the night before last opining that the claims of election fraud were "balderdash". Brit is a very thoughtful and long experienced political observer whose opinion I highly regard. That said, however, it seems to me that individual judgment on this matter is generally highly dependent on one's regard for Mr. Trump. So, Democrats, anti-Trump Republicans and the major media state that the election was free and fair, in particular noting that multiple court proceedings have ruled against the Trump supporters. It's an open and shut case they say and to claim otherwise is almost traitorous.
Trump supporters aren't so sure. His opponent's hatred for him is unmatched, certainly in any of the 12 previous administrations that I have observed during my lifetime, and there is the sense that they feel it is justified to be rid of him at any cost. And the large push for mail in voting in the swing states, which in size exceeds by three times previous years, and the dramatic swing in his fortunes as these began to be counted have raised suspicions, although admittedly suspicions are not hard evidence.
The truth of the matter makes a difference. If the election truly turned on subterfuge, then it's hard to argue that Mr. Trump's encouragement of his supporters to strongly protest is unjustified. However, Mr. Trump's opponents have derided the idea that there is viable evidence of a fraudulent election and hold that those who make the claim are conspiracy theorists and somewhat of a threat to the republic. They insist that the President who promotes such ideas should be condemned and impeached.
What about the evidence? There's far too much to detail, so let's take a few examples, presented in a hearing before a small sub-committee of Georgia state legislators in December, that I took the trouble to watch.
Georgia votes were counted in a large arena on machines which could count up to 3000 ballots per hour. Unbeknownst to those in the room there was video surveillance. Around 10PM press and GOP observers were told that ballot handling was suspended until the morning. After they had left, 4 workers remained to count ballots unobserved by press or poll watchers. Many ballots were brought out in large containers which for reasons not clear were stored under a table. Workers were observed on the video repeatedly taking large stacks of these ballots, running them through the counting machine, then recounting the same ballots a second and then a third time.
There was sworn testimony of 3 impartial data experts who examined the voting data, noted many irregularities and who concluded there was strong evidence of fraud. They noted, for example, large numbers of suddenly deleted Trump votes in 3 different Democrat leaning counties, and in one instance there was a deletion of 12,571 votes for Mr. Trump at the time that the exact same amount was suddenly added to Mr. Biden. They testified that the voting machines could be programmed to make such changes.
Claims have been made that Dominion voting machines could not be connected to outside sources. At the hearing, a computer expert testified that his group was able to hack into the machine network wirelessly and that they were into the system at the moment of his testimony.
What are we to think of these things and a great many others? Are we simply to accept the word of the media, who despise Mr. Trump, and the Georgia election officials that all was on the up and up? Perhaps there are benign explanations. But can't we, for example, at least have direct testimony of the election workers as to why they acted as they did rather than second hand media explanations. And can't we have an actual demonstration of the capacity to hack into the voting machines? After the 2016 elections there was a prolonged investigation of the charge, on very limited evidence, that Mr. Trump and Putin had collaborated to simply influence voters by fallacious Facebook posts, but not to actually alter votes. In this far more serious charge shouldn't we have an open presentation of the evidence and a serious investigation into the actual complaints, rather than a rejection of a hearing by courts based on procedural considerations. That is what was being sought by the Congressmen who were prepared to object to electors, and who are now being pilloried as traitors. Don't we deserve that much? Or are we willing to reject the suspicions of millions of our citizens out of hand and maintain the bitter divide that's making our country into a world spectacle.
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