It is my opinion that at this time, there is no issue more important than "election integrity". Everything else in the political sphere is a distraction.
Election integrity is critical because the 10% who believe that the end always justifies the means are driving the nation off a cliff. Zealots are dangerous and they are able to illegitimately grab the reins of power through corrupt elections.
We can recover from an economic collapse. We always have. We can recover from bad policies and bad adjudication. We cannot recover from "Kings" or mandarins and the systemic corruption that results.
Look at Israel in the Old Testament. They survived 120 years from the coronation of Saul (the first King) to the end of Solomon's rein. Then the kingdom shattered into chaos. Absolute power corrupts at an absolute level.
The two sides (D. and R.) are going to quibble about which side "wants to be king". But how do
- One citizen, one (and only one) vote
- Vote in person
- No vote without picture ID from an authoritative source
- Real-time reconciliation of voter to the rolls
...result in "Kings"?
The argument that "it will suppress the vote" tells me that there are legions of would-be voters who simply don't care enough to go to the polling place and to vote in person...and yet, miraculously, their votes get cast. If they don't care, then "their vote" should not count.
The cynics will undoubtedly start commenting that "voting doesn't matter". If that is true, then the cynics would also have to support the contention that there would have been no difference between a Donald Trump administration and a Kamala Harris administration. I don't know anybody who would support that position.
Read about Gadianton Robbers. They are alive and well in our political class today.
ReplyDeleteYou've always had a King in the USA - your Constitution defines your elective monarchy. To take the obvious example, your elected Monarch has far more power than ever George III had.
ReplyDeleteWhich just supports your point: it's crucial that elections be hard to rig. But then I'm old enough to remember, vaguely, the JFK vs Nixon election. Everyone seemed to accept that it was rigging that gave JFK the win. Certainly American Democrats whom I later met at university didn't bother to deny it. One was even rather proud of it.
Well that’s an interesting take. I’m curious the difference between the longest ruling President (FDR) vs that of your longest ruling Monarch?
DeleteI absolutely agree about one thing that often gets lost in the noise: legitimacy matters. A democracy that cannot convince its citizens that elections are real, fair, and binding will eventually fracture. History—biblical or otherwise—backs that up.
ReplyDeleteBut I think we might be confusing “more restriction” with “more integrity.” Those two things are not the same.
Election integrity already exists—and is boring by design. Modern U.S. elections are not casual affairs. They include: voter roll maintenance, signature verification, chain-of-custody procedures, bipartisan poll workers, post-election audits, and criminal penalties for fraud.
That’s why actual, proven voter impersonation fraud is vanishingly rare—measured in dozens nationally, not millions. When systems are working, they look boring. When someone insists they’re broken despite no evidence, that’s not vigilance—that’s narrative.
“Kings” don’t arise from voters — they arise from control of access
Historically, kings don’t seize power by letting too many people vote. They do it by controlling who is allowed to vote, controlling how votes are counted, controlling which votes are discarded and delegitimizing results they don’t like.
A system that says “only certain forms of participation count” quietly hands power to the people who define those rules. That’s not democracy hardening itself—that’s gatekeeping authority.
Voter ID sounds simple—until you look at reality
“Just show ID” sounds neutral until you ask:
What IDs qualify?
Who issues them?
What about name changes (marriage, divorce)?
What about rural voters hours from issuing offices?
What about elderly voters born at home?
What about costs, time off work, transportation?
When access depends on administrative hurdles, voting stops being a right and becomes a conditional privilege. That’s not theory—it’s history.
Vote-by-mail isn’t apathy—it’s modernization. The claim that people who don’t vote in person “don’t care” ignores reality: soldiers, caregivers, shift workers, disabled voters, rural voters, and people avoiding long lines deliberately created by underfunding polling places.
Mail voting didn’t appear to help fraud; it appeared to help participation—which is precisely why it’s attacked.
The real threat to integrity isn’t fraud—it’s disbelief.
The most corrosive thing happening right now is not illegal voting—it’s the insistence that any loss must be illegitimate.
Once that belief takes hold, no safeguard is ever enough, because the goal quietly shifts from accuracy to control. That’s how republics fall—not with ballot stuffing, but with people deciding ahead of time which outcomes they will accept.
True election integrity requires two equal commitments; secure processes, and maximum lawful participation.
Sacrificing one for the other doesn’t prevent kings—it creates the conditions for them.
A democracy doesn’t die when people vote too easily. It dies when some people get to decide whose votes are allowed to count.
Odd how it is so difficult to actually EXAMINE the evidence when Elections are SO FAIR and Above board.
DeleteBut the COURTS said... Yeah the Courts say a lot well beyond their job description in the Constitution. Like stopping every action the Democrats dislike by Duley ELECTED President Trump.
BTW America is not a Democracy, read the original documents America is a REPUBLIC. Our forefathers were classically educated and knew QUITE Well the dangers of Mob Rule.
SNIP A demagogue (/ˈdɛməˌɡɒɡ/; from Ancient Greek δημαγωγός (dēmagōgós) 'popular leader, mob leader'; from Ancient Greek δῆμος (dêmos) 'people, populace' and ἀγωγός (agōgós) 'leading, guiding'),[1] or rabble-rouser,[2][3] is a political leader in a democracy who gains popularity by arousing the common people against elites, especially through oratory that whips up the passions of crowds, appealing to emotion by scapegoating out-groups, exaggerating dangers to stoke fears, lying for emotional effect, or other rhetoric that tends to drown out reasoned deliberation and encourage fanatical popularity.[4] Demagogues overturn established norms of political conduct, or promise or threaten to do so.[5]: 32–38
ID isn't difficult to get. That's a nonsense phrase used every time some Demagogue wants to keep the illegal voters in their payroll.
How many people voted in the 2020 election?
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the 2020 presidential election saw the highest voter turnout of the 21st century with "66.8% of citizens 18 years and older voting."
In 2020, the population of US citizens aged 17 and over was estimated to be approximately 183 million according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Credible, repeatedly cited tallies list Joe Biden’s national popular‑vote total in 2020 at approximately 81.2 million votes — often reported more precisely as about 81,284,000 — while Donald Trump received about 74.2 million; these totals are reflected in major reporting and election‑data aggregators that draw on state certifications and Federal Election Commission summaries.
Lets do some MATH... 183 million X 66.8% = 125 million -81 million for Biden = 44 million LEFT but, But, But Trump got 74.2 Million votes....
WHERE DID 30 Million 18 and older votes COME FROM...
All the above data comes from Google.