A recent poll showed how effective within the Republican party President Donald Trump’s efforts to cast doubt on the 2020 election has been.
Roughly one month after the presidential election, 34% of registered voters think President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election is not legitimate, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released Dec. 10.
This minority view of who won the election was fueled by 70% of Republicans responding that Biden’s victory is not legitimate as well as 77% believing there was widespread voter fraud.
Those are alarming numbers that should have all Americans worried about our democracy.
In our eyes, this is the culmination of the Republician party’s action to fight any expansion of voting rights in the U.S., all started by the U.S. Supreme Court gutting the Voting Rights Act in 2013 in Shelby v. Holder.
In a 5-4 vote, the highest court in the nation struck down a formula requiring certain states and localities with a history of discrimination against minority voters to get changes cleared by the federal government before they went into effect. The law had placed the burden of proof on government officials to prove why the changes they were seeking were not discriminatory. After the decision, voters who are discriminated against bore the burden of proving they are disenfranchised.
Since then, Republican lawmakers have moved to enact voter ID laws as well as closing 1,688 polling places in states previously covered under the Voting Rights Act, according to a report from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Before the Shelby decision, local officials would have had to submit these changes for federal review and show they were not discriminatory; those changes can now be made without analyzing the impact of the closures.
With vote-by-mail expanded universally due to the coronavirus by states—including New Jersey—for the 2020 election, the calls of voter fraud escalated, led by the current resident in the White House and his enablers.
In court cases presented by his supporters that have lost time after time across the U.S., the lawsuits amplified by President Donald Trump claimed:
- the country’s voting machinery run by Dominion Voting Systems was manipulated to delete millions of votes for the President;
- dead people were able to vote;
- Republican poll watchers were not allowed to monitor votes being counted in Democrat-run cities;
- voting officials manipulated machines used to verify signatures to allow ballots that normally wouldn’t pass muster; and
- large amounts of votes for Biden were “dumped” after in-person ballots were counted on election night, a claim that includes no actual allegations of corruption and instead describes the legitimate tallying of mail-in ballots, which typically takes longer because of verification methods.
Again, to reiterate, not one of these allegations were proven in a court of law.
Here is the truth: Over a recent 14-year period before this year’s election, there were only 31 documented cases of voter impersonation, no evidence it changed the result of any election. In April 2020, a voter fraud study covering 20 years by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found the level of fraud “exceedingly rare” since it occurs only in 0.00006% of instances nationally. Putting that number in perspective, the odds of getting killed by a meteorite was recently calculated at 0.0004%
Kentucky’s junior senator Rand Paul recently said the quiet part aloud about why the GOP voting suppression efforts have been initiated since Shelby v. Holder.
In an interview of Fox Business about the upcoming runoffs for the two upcoming seats in Georgia and the availability of absentee ballots, Sen. Paul stated “I’m very, very concerned that if you solicit votes from typically non-voters, that you will affect and change the outcome.”
Yes, Senator, getting as many people involved in the democratic process is not something that should be encouraged.
So why are Republicans continuing down this road? We believe it is simply politics. The facts are President-elect Joe Biden won the electoral college by a landslide—according to President Trump’s own metrics—and received the most votes by a candidate ever running for office. Unable to beat him and Democrats at the ballot box, they now continue to try to delegitimize any victory by a Democrat in the court of public opinion.
For those that think New Jersey GOP voters are less inclined to believe the messaging coming from President Trump, we have some bad news for you.
According to a poll commissioned by Newark-based non-profit Project Ready, more than three-quarters of New Jersey Republicans think President Trump should be serving four more years, believing by a 77%-11% margin that Trump won the 2020 election.
That is something you should keep in mind when considering candidates in the Garden State in the coming years
I’m afraid that if a relatively enlightened state like NJ is buying into this Republican BS, our country is going to be in need of a huge re-education project on what it means to be a citizen and the responsibilities that come with it. Facing facts, real and not alternative ones, is a major start.
You are right in sync with China. RE-EDUCATION PROJECT!!! Do you ever really see what you write?
“RE-EDUCATION PROJECT!!! Do you ever really see what you write?” I certainly do, Thomas. To be in denial of provable facts is like saying 2+2=5 and basing all your calculations on that. I stand by the fact that a lack of education grounded in reality results in people making stupid decisions and leaping to false conclusions. I am grateful to have gone through a public school system and private university where critical thinking was a cornerstone of learning.
RE-education? That would imply that these mental midgets had their desks facing the front of the classroom their first time around. It doesn’t dawn on these thought-challenged nimrods that if the votes on a ballot are ‘frauds’ then EVERYONE on that ballot didn’t get a vote? Including people they voted for? Math is obviously not a strong suit for these ASNEM members (that would be the complete opposite of MENSA), nor is critical thought, science, history or most of the basic skills and knowledge that would have let them ascend above the bottom 10% of their class. And how is it that only THEIR abysmal Presidunce claims ”rigged'” elections – he started in 2016, so THAT one must have been rigged too? In two elections now, their Orange Fraud has been outvoted by over 10 MILLION VOTES. They can stick their “fraud” in the appropriate place.
I need to add that as of tonight (12/20/20) the link to the Project Ready poll goes to a spam ad, not to the poll.
Donald Trump lies about everything and has lied and defrauded people and companies his entire adult life. The idea that multiple states, some headed by Republican governors, have conspired to throw the election Biden’s way…….a 12 year old can see that it’s false.
The GOP death cult knows no state boundaries.
What a sad comment on our society. One only needs to read the tweets and listen to those around The President to know that he is unhinged. His level of rationality and sanity, if questionable before, is off the charts. And yet people believe him??? He follows no law nor any order
Like lemmings; the republicans follow their leader. Horrifying.
There’s plenty of voter fraud in NJ, so why not everywhere else? I’m not a Republican, but I voted for Trump because he is getting our troops out of these never-ending wars. I believe he won the election. The Democrats once again succeeded in choosing a real looser.
There has been NO proof offered of any widespread fraud in many investigations over the years. Look it up. Even GOP surveys of fraud came up with miniscule numbers. It does not exist.
I guess you can’t fix stupid…anywhere!
Absolutely horrifying!!! HOW does this charlatan attract so many lemmings???
That 77% of Republicans are currently in denial makes sense just a few short weeks after the election, as grief moves from shock to denial and eventually to anger and blame. Biden’s ‘healing’ message shows that he has experience dealing with and getting past deep partisan divides and the feeling that elections are zero-sum with only winners and losers. His task is to eventually make most Americans feel like winners. There will be some Democrats however who will relentlessly pursue and try to crush what they view as subversion of our democracy including fake facts, gossip and outright attacks on voting rights.
I am appalled that people in NJ could be that DUMB!!!!!!!!!! But, as we all know, stupid is something you or I cannot fix!!!!!!Trump the TRAITOR is a TOTAL COWARD. THIEF,FRAUD,AND BUM !!!!!!!!!i worry about the future if there are so many stupid people in NJ -I only hope their children are smarter!!!!!!trump the shister has stolen the souls of these fools…maybe they should all drink some Cool Aid . !!!!!!!!