The left and its media allies are warning Americans not to expect a winner on election night. If Donald Trump wins on November 3, victory will be nothing more than a “red mirage,” says Josh Mendelsohn, whose firm is a consultant to the Democratic National Committee. Within days or weeks, Trump’s victory will be rejected and reversed as mail-in ballots prevail in the election for Joe Biden, predicts New York Times columnist David Brooks. “Joe Biden should under no circumstances concede,” warns Hillary Clinton.
Don’t buy into this propaganda that election night victories are a thing of the past because of mail-in voting. Election night is a hallmark of American democracy. Society should demand uncomplicated reforms that would protect them.
The 2020 election will likely come down to a few battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio and Minnesota. If these states do not reform their election laws now, on election night, they will be inundated with countless mail-in votes. States must require that absentee ballots be received well in advance of Election Day and counted when received.
Otherwise, the uncertainty will drag on, voters will lose power, and the outcome will be decided by courtrooms and backrooms.
Or even in the House of Representatives. All states must allocate their Electoral College votes by December 14. If even one swing state is still swinging, it’s possible that neither Trump nor Biden will have 270 electoral votes. The decision would then go to the House of Representatives. There hasn’t been a deadlock in the Electoral College since 1876, but the state’s stupid absentee ballot laws could result in one this year.
Half of all ballots are expected to be cast by mail. These ballots must be processed manually and the signatures verified against signatures in a state database. Eleven states, including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, prohibit election workers from even opening ballots and beginning the time-consuming verification process until Election Day. It’s crazy.
Fortunately, election officials in Pennsylvania and Michigan are calling for reforms. More states need to act. If they don’t, Congress should step in.
The U.S. Constitution gives states primary power over presidential elections, but Congress can likely still act. Congress passed the Help America Vote Act to improve the accuracy of vote counting after the 2000 fiasco in Florida when candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore claimed victory. This time, Congress should head off the crisis by requiring all states to count mailed ballots before election night.
Anyone who opposes these elementary reforms means scandal.
Many Democrats don’t want certainty on election night. The DNC and allied groups are currently in court demanding that even ballots mailed after election night or those that did not contain signatures be counted. Why should the votes of people who are tardy in returning their ballot be counted more than the votes of people who arrive tardy at the polls?
U.S. Postal Service officials have made clear that voters should mail their ballots at least seven days before Election Day to guarantee delivery. States should establish this legal deadline.
Late votes threaten to throw our president’s election to the newly elected House, which will convene on January 3, 2021. Each state delegation will receive one vote. Republicans barely control a majority of state delegations in the current Congress, but that could change. The House of Representatives decision is bullshit for Biden and Trump. It is also a moral failure of voters who will have to stand by and watch as Washington policemen elect the president.
Worse still, it will plunge the nation into a leaderless vacuum from early November to early January, which will be a perilous situation.
There is still time to prevent this potential chaos by processing mailed ballots as they are received and requiring them to be mailed a week before the election.
How complex is it?
Democrats opposing these elementary reforms have a different agenda: anarchy in the streets, mobs demanding a Biden victory, and ultimately a president elected behind the scenes long after election night.
Betsy McCaughey, former Lieutenant Governor of New York and author of “The Next Pandemic,” available on Amazon.com. Contact her at betsy@betsymccaughey.com. To learn more about Betsy McCaughey and read articles by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
