When the People Speak,

their Voice is Truth not Fraud

by Thomas Coffin

The 2020 Election featured the Nation’s largest turnout in its history and resulted in a resounding victory for Democracy and rejection of an anti-democracy authoritarian movement which espouses white supremacy nationalism and privileged elitist rule. The United States had come to a crossroad where the people were compelled to choose between over two centuries of governance under a Constitution with its democratic values, liberty, and freedoms or discarding its heritage and embarking on the road to totalitarianism. The Citizens responded by overwhelmingly affirming Democracy.

But in the wake following the election, the authoritarian candidate and his Party refused to recognize the outcome and bombasted the media and the courts with false claims that the vote tally was somehow “fraud”. Notwithstanding the vote margin (Joe Biden won by the largest margin ever recorded—over 7,000,000 votes) the losing candidate, Donald Trump, and a substantial number of the Republican party insisted that his defeat was an impossibility and that the result had to have been the product of systemic massive fraud within the election process.

Without any evidence to support such a claim, Trump and his Party undertook a furious campaign to nullify the election outcome and arbitrarily have it decreed that Trump was the winner and thus was entitled to another 4-year term as President.

Thus, among other tactics, Trump and his followers launched over 50 lawsuits throughout the country in an effort to have the courts expunge votes that had been cast for his opponent based solely on the bald assertions that they were invalid. When pressed by the courts to cite any evidence which supported their claims, they were unable to point to anything that substantiated their claims. The lawsuits were all dismissed for utter lack of substance.

On another front, Trump encouraged his supporters to intimidate election officials and cajole them into dumping ballots and not certifying the election counts in their States. A sitting US Senator even called an official in Georgia to urge him to find some reason to negate votes cast for Trump’s opponent. The official refused.

Across the nation dedicated public officials charged with overseeing the integrity of America’s most sacred institution of democracy—voting—came under threats of violence and encountered armed thugs even at their homes. Many had to receive police protection just to perform their duties.

The threats and intimidating tactics only underscored the falsity of the bogus claims of fraud that melted almost as soon as the attorneys pushing the lawsuits were ordered by judges to offer proof of their claims. “Show me the beef” is always impossible for the con artist.

Even more ominously, a retired Lt. General of the US Army, Michael Flynn—twice convicted of perjury for lying to the FBI but pardoned for his offenses and spared from prison by President Trump—publicly called for Trump to impose martial law (on the entire country) and cancel the election results.

It is no exaggeration to observe that our Nation has never before witnessed such conduct in defiance of its election process and the expressed will of its People. This is what happens in totalitarian regimes, not democracies unless in a coup, and especially not in the birthplace of the world’s foremost beacon and model of Democracy.

But there is yet more, including threats to the very structure of a unified country.

The State of Texas, authorized by its Republican Governor and Attorney General, attempted to file a lawsuit directly in the US Supreme Court against the States of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Georgia, seeking to have the Court nullify all the votes in those States and thus declare Trump the winner of the presidential election. The thrust of the lawsuit was unimaginable — it sought to disenfranchise the entirety of the votes cast by the citizens of 4 States. As was the case in all the other lawsuits, no evidence was cited demonstrating any defects in the voting process that would justify such a draconian suppression of the votes of the people. The Court rejected the lawsuit, ruling that Texas had no standing to complain about the election processes in other States.

The dismissal generated a suggestion by the Chairman of the Texas Republican Party for other States to consider joining Texas in seceding from the United States and forming a separate Nation. In other words, America, if we cannot have Trump and our Party in charge, it could mean Civil War II. That theme was also picked up by conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh, who bemoaned the fact that the GOP cannot win the vote in cities like New York and that the answer might be to fraction the country and entertain the idea of secession.

This brings me to another observation, one that I believe explains the hyperbole about “fraud” in our elections and the persistent efforts to undermine public confidence in the integrity of our democracy’s life blood—free elections where every vote counts. If you look closely at all the lawsuits filed by Trump et. al. they mainly if not exclusively targeted the African-American vote demographic, such as in Wayne County, Michigan and other inner cities where African-American voters wield numerical power. And if you also track the political efforts of the Republicans to engage in voter suppression tactics and gerrymandering in areas where the African- American demographic is dominant, you find a pattern that has persisted for decades and really has been prevalent in many areas since the post-Civil War and Jim Crow era. What Limbaugh laments—the inner city African-American vote—is in reality the underlying racist basis for the hue and cry of “massive fraud”. It is, in other words, the odious notion that African-American votes are not as legitimate or as equal to White votes. The nation suffered secession the first time because of racism. It is striking that such an idea would be bandied about today, but hardly surprising given the validation of the white supremacy movement we have witnessed over the past 4 years.

The cumulative voice of “we the People” in our 2020 election is not “Fraud”. It is Democracy in action, Freedom in choice, and Liberty at work. It is all the ideals that are forbidden, labeled illegitimate, and despised by tyrants. The People have spoken. Respect their decision. The People will not submit to tyranny, not now, not ever.