Election inaccuracies | News, Sports, Jobs – Williamsport Sun-Gazette
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There was a letter about last year’s election published somewhat recently that had some inaccuracies.
The writer defends Republican worry about the results, despite the fact that Republicans increased their positions in statewide offices. The rare Republican loss was in the presidential election. I have yet to see any of those voted into office in the fall election complaining that their election was fraudulent or unfair.
He starts by stating it was “liberal judges” who “legalized fraud,” despite the fact that the bulk of the changes in election procedures, such as the expansion of mail-in voting, were passed by the Republican-led Legislature. He states “massive amounts of ballots were sent out to unsolicited people with no regard to their legal voting status.” This is both false, and an insult to the election workers, many Republican, who oversaw the election. My wife and I, in order to vote by mail, had to order an application, and only after that was signed, returned and cleared, were sent mail-in ballots. He states “ballot harvesting (was done) at nursing homes where Democratic operatives helped the elderly fill out their ballots.” I can’t find any credible reporting of this claim, despite a deep dive on the internet. Does he have any evidence? Other than a NewsMax soundbite? “Drop boxes that were unmonitored,” again, no eyewitnesses, no evidence. “Observers at the polls kept at a distance” was found through a Republican lawsuit to be false, in a Philadelphia courtroom during the vote count, and was further corroborated by journalists in the same counting room. “Voter days extended … three days beyond the past established deadline,” not unreasonable, given the COVID crisis. And, just how does that constitute fraud? “Ballots lacking signatures” brings to mind an elderly friend, a super voter, who failed to use both envelopes of the double envelope system. Fortunately, the local elections office was good enough to call her prior to Election Day, so she could go downtown to correct the problem. “Ballots being counted even when they arrived after the extended deadlines.” This was rare, in a handful of counties, and election officials said in any case, would not have changed the outcome.
Remember, the only cases of fraud proven after state audits were a few Republicans who used dead relatives names to vote for Trump.
More recently, another reader wrote that “Trump and his attorneys had massive documented evidence that they took to about 50 courts and all refused to listen to his case.” Hmm. Why has no one seen this “massive evidence,” other than the Trump attorneys about to be disbarred for promoting falsehoods? And, by the way, it was over 65 judges, roughly half of them Republicans, some of whom were appointed by Trump, and they all did indeed listen to his case and the pitiful “evidence” presented, and all found it completely without merit.
As did his Attorney General Bill Barr, and his election security czar. Wishful thinking will not change the fact that Trump lost, cleanly and fairly. By comparison, Georgia, at Republican insistence, conducted not one but three audits of the election results, all of which came to the same bottom line: Trump lost.
The pernicious thing about Trump’s Big Lie is that Republican legislatures, trying to kowtow to the Trump base, are now using that lie about what was probably the cleanest and fairest election in American history to restrict ballot access for all of us.
LAWRENCE ROSS
Loyalsock Township
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