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The Executive Branch Must Act Within Its Authority

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Published in The Post Newspaper December 21, 2024 Prior to the 2024 election, approximately two-thirds of American voters worried about election integrity. That same number believed that deceit determined the 2020 outcome. After November 2024, voter tone softened with only 20% expressing worry.  Should voters feel more confident in future results?  Here are three examples that might challenge this confidence: -  During the middle of election night three rust belt states simultaneously and suddenly stopped ballot counting.  An extremely accurate pollster who was watching noted, “Oh here we go, 2020 all over again!”  His comment was based upon what he’d seen in his own polling data from randomly contacting voters in each of these three states.  His data showed a different outcome than what he suspected might be happening on Election Night. Then the Democrat Governor of Pennsylvania made a TV statement, (paraphrasing) “Well you all know that it just takes a long time to count votes, so the outcome will be delayed.”   Fearing a repeat of 2020, the pollster watched with grave concern only to be surprised half-an-hour later, when counting resumed. All three states were eventually called for Trump. -  A second event happened several days after Election Day in Wisconsin. The Republican Senate challenger remained comfortably ahead. Suddenly, a vote dump from a liberal county added more than 90,000 to the Democrat incumbent, pushing her ahead of her challenger. At the same time President Trump was still conformably leading his opponent. The question some have raised is whether such a large number of people were actually “split-ticket” voting. -  A third example comes from Arizona.  A similar anomality appeared between the Presidential and Senatorial races. The Green candidate received slightly more than 15,000 for President while in the Senate race, that party received more than 75,000 votes, votes that pollsters thought were Republican Kari Lake voters.  The difference might have swung the race for Lake.  Until the last minute, the Republican was leading in the race which was supported by last minute and credible polls.  Were there shenanigans taking place?  Who knows? Some of the abnormalities may just be that, abnormalities. But statisticians who studied and reviewed voting in both Milwaukee County, WI and Wayne County, MI believe there is greater than a 95% probability that significant ballot stuffing occurred in the 2020 election; perhaps even enough to impact the results of the presidential race. There are those who believe similar practices occurred this year but that Trump’s lead was so substantial that those practices didn’t change the end result. Election integrity is on the mind of voters.  More than three-fourths of those surveyed support significant reductions in the number of days in Early Voting (we have twelve in Texas).  They want results reported within 12 hours after the polls are closed, and they want to have a paper backup for all votes cast.  Nationwide we can’t continue to allow improprieties at significant levels. Recently the head of the national Republican Party vowed to protect voter integrity. We’d encourage him to look closer at examples like those noted above, determine the reason for the abnormalities, and take appropriate actions to address them.
	About the Authors and Columnists 2024 Bill Sargent and Mark Mansius have written over 275 guest columns and editorials over the last ten years and continue to do so. Bill lives in Galveston, Texas and Mark in St. Georges, Utah. Both ran against each other in the 2012 Republican Primary for Texas Congressional District 14, since then they have become close friends and colleagues.
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