Democracy May Involve Disorder and Disruption but It Requires Dependable Integrity

Do I think the objections to the Electoral Vote certification will succeed? No.
Do I think that the objections should nonetheless be made? Yes, absolutely.

Some may question my answers above, but if one takes a step back from their feelings for or against President Trump and looks at this past election more objectively, anyone who cares about our American democracy must agree.

There is no question that there was a much higher number of ballot irregularities in this election than the few that occur in every election.  In some cases, the numbers were huge enough that they could have changed (though there is no proof, nor may there ever be any, that they did or did not change) the outcome of not only the presidential result but results of other contests on the ballot as well.

If there is any possibility that fraud or other lack of integrity allowed illegal votes to be cast and counted, then those votes diluted the votes of those who cast legal ballots, thus disenfranchising those legal voters just as if their valid votes had not been counted.  This should concern everyone of us who enjoys the benefits of our democracy.

A number of senators, led by Ted Cruz, will object on Wednesday to results from specific states.  Their joint statement indicates that they will vote against accepting the election results until there is a 10-day audit:

Congress should immediately appoint an Electoral Commission, with full investigatory and fact-finding authority, to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in the disputed states. Once completed, individual states would evaluate the Commission’s findings and could convene a special legislative session to certify a change in their vote, if needed.

Will this divide the country?  Perhaps, but probably no more than it is already divided.  Will it cause some anger and uncertainty during the 10 days if the objection prevails and the proposed Commission is established?  Yes.  But then, uncertainty is a part of democracy.  Only in those nations where a governing body, not the people, makes all decisions is there any kind of certainty.  That certainty may not be pleasant (“This week you will get one loaf of bread and two potatoes”), but the people will know exactly what will happen. 

Democracy does not have certainty, pleasant or unpleasant.  That is because the people have a voice and as that voice changes and evolves, the people will make different choices.  And, because those choices often address if not resolve many opposing viewpoints, then the disruption and disorder they cause become an essential part of the preservation of our democratic freedoms.

Putting aside the turbulence this objection may cause, isn’t it more important that we establish the integrity of our elections when it is those very elections that are a key cornerstone of our democracy?  The trustworthiness of our elections is needed for the people of the nation to accept and support their results as the true voice of the people.  Without that certainty, we no longer have a government of, for, and by the people, and our democracy is in peril.

Today, 39% of Americans believe the 2016 Presidential election was “rigged”; that includes 17 percent of Democrats and 31 percent of independents.  This needs to be addressed.  It affects not only the legitimacy of this election and presidency, but the legitimacy of all future elections as well. 

Ted Cruz said, that dismissing these claims “does real violence to our democratic system. We ought to have a serious, fair process and tribunal to consider these claims, consider them quickly, consider them expeditiously. We can do it in 10 days before the inauguration.”

What is wrong with that?  We have within our democracy a system for objecting to the Electoral vote.  These senators are following that established procedure.  It is not treasonous as Democrats and others who oppose the objections assert.  Indeed, Democrats objected in 2004 and 2016 and were praised by Democratic leadership and the media when they did. Those objections, like the objections to be made by Republicans this Wednesday, were legal and a valid and necessary aspect of our democracy.

The people need to know that they can trust the democratic process, they need to know that only legal votes will be counted and that all such votes will be counted.  Our vote is a great privilege and to weaken or cancel it by allowing even the perception of a lack of voter integrity is one of the most destructive things that can be done to the American people and their democracy. 

I am aware that the fact that this election was about retaining or not retaining President Trump causes many people to lose any objectivity in the matter and forget what the bigger picture of election integrity is all about.  I understand that President Trump’s sometimes abrasive language, which is not missing in his current fight to find the actual and true vote totals, is a trigger for some sort of anger and/or hate in many. 

The cloud that covers so many eyes and minds when President Trump speaks (the cloud sometimes known as “Trump Derangement Syndrome”) was triggered again by the leak of a phone conversation with Georgia’s Secretary of State wherein, amongst his rant about the hundreds of thousands of questionable ballots, President Trump commented that all he needed was 11,780 of those hundreds of thousands to win.  How this could be any kind of criminal act is ludicrous, yet Democrats and Trump-haters are calling for criminal investigations if not the death penalty.

But while for Trump, who may very well have had an election stolen from him, this is primarily about his vote totals, for the rest of us this should be more fundamentally about American democracy.  While we can clearly see the very different consequences for our country that a Trump or Biden presidency would have, hatred of or love for our current president should not remove our focus on the bigger picture. 

While it is unlikely that, even if the objection prevails and a commission investigates, the final election result will change, that does not mean that this objection should not be made.  The Commission it seeks should be granted. 

We the people have a right to know what happened in this election:  how, for example, in some instances there were more votes than voters, or how a precise needed number of votes miraculously appeared in bulk in the middle of the night.  Even if we live with questions about our president for the next four years, we need to know what happened so that we can have faith in the integrity of our future elections.  That trustworthiness is essential to our democracy.

NOTE, the full statement of those senators planning to object to the Electoral vote on Jan. 6 can be found here: LINK