Thursday, November 05, 2020

Fraudulent Votes

Remember that most accusations of fraud will turn out to be unfounded. That's just what happens in most of life. Missing children show up after dinner. Most lumps turn out to be benign. It doesn't mean that all of them will be unfounded, and even if they are, it doesn't mean it was a bad idea to be on a hair-trigger looking for stuff.

Unnecessary chaos was injected into the race late. Sometimes people do that for well-meant but stupid reasons, sometimes in order to disguise something nefarious. It's one of those situations where it's entirely reasonable to be a little crazy. Having honest elections is central to a functioning democracy. It's not a traffic ticket. If something looks suspicious, it's okay to point the finger, sound the alarm. Yes, you can eventually be accused of crying wolf, feel insulted and resentful, and have to build your credibility back.  That's a small price to pay compared to letting suspicious things go without a mention. You can live with yourself even licking your wounds.  You might not be able to deal with having ignored a real issue.

Even material proof of fraud might not move enough votes to change the election.  If there's a 50,000-vote margin and 5,000 are tossed, the result is the same.  It was still worth doing. My only caution is to remind folks that eventually, material fraud will have to be proven or no one's going to jail. My impression or your impression that "the explanations just weren't good enough" is insufficient.

Courage comes in different forms, and we're going to need a variety here. It takes courage to risk being wrong.

No comments: