There is nothing more tantamount to American democracy than the right to vote. Given that fact, it would only make entirely too much sense to make voting as safe, secure and efficient as possible. So then why isn’t it?
Defying all predictions of a photo finish senate race, Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman won 50.3% of the vote to Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz’s 47.3%. The unexpectedly large margin helped avoid a midterm meltdown. But don’t be deceived; that margin masks major electoral system dysfunction that remains unaddressed.
The final results in the Nov. 8 elections heralded several important changes to state election-integrity laws across the country. While some of the initiatives, approved via ballot referendums, will improve the integrity of state elections, others are more invidious, making elections in those states more insecure.
Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin said Monday his office will not prosecute anyone identified as having deposited more than one mail-in ballot into drop boxes around the county during the 2021 election.
In a state where ballot harvesting is illegal, a remarkable coincidence occurred right before election day. According to reports from the Senate Judiciary Committee, 25,000 nursing home residents in different facilities across the state all requested ballots at the same time. Who ordered them? And more importantly, who filled them out? An investigation is currently ongoing.
Bring out your dead! The dead are now receiving mail-in election ballots in New Jersey, so are people who haven’t lived at an address in years, sometimes decades, if ever at all. One New Jersey Mayor, Carlos Rendo of Woodcliff Lake, who ran for Lt. Governor in 2017 today sounded the alarm.
Government has software that can track down you down in an instant if you owe the IRS or didn’t pay a speeding ticket. When a person dies, the funeral home automatically notifies Social Security. But in response to a complaint from Ms. Carolyn Quinn, who received ballots for her two deceased parents, an election clerk in Union County, NY claims the family should have notified her office directly. Arrogance and avoiding responsibility is no friend to vote integrity.
A ballot-harvesting racket in Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Minneapolis district — where paid workers illegally gather absentee ballots from elderly Somali immigrants — appears to have been busted by undercover news organization Project Veritas.