The Wall Street Journal writes, "Four years of baseless allegations of election fraud have created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation among election officials from Atlanta to rural Washington state, transforming the way workers in many parts of the country are approaching the most fundamental of civic duties."
The Journal continues, “To be honest, it was easy in the beginning to say that it was just a 2020 thing—it’s done, it’s over,” said Justin Smith, a retired Colorado sheriff who has been training law enforcement and election officials to prepare for Nov. 5 in dozens of states. “Well, since then we’ve proven that it’s a trend that’s moving forward.”
The Journal quotes Republican Steve Richer, Arizona's Maricopa County Recorder. With nearly five million residents, Maricopa County is one of the nation’s largest voting jurisdictions.
Richer says, “It feels very dystopian."
Should citizen voters who have questions about the integrity of our elections be silenced?
If they ask questions, should they feel "dystopian?"
Be informed, not misled.
It seems that the Wall Street Journal is making its best case against speaking up and asking questions about the integrity of our election process.
This sensational report implies that questioning the integrity of our elections is tantamount to domestic terrorism.
John Daniel Davidson, writing for The Federalist, says, "The Journal repeatedly characterized those who think the 2020 election was stolen, rigged, or less-than-secure as “election deniers,” and stopped just short of calling them domestic terrorists."
"Dystopian"? "Terrorists"?
The piece is framed as a disturbing look at the growing threats facing local election officials from “election deniers” — an asinine epithet — as we approach November 5: “Four years of baseless allegations of election fraud have created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation among election officials from Atlanta to rural Washington state, transforming the way workers in many parts of the country are approaching the most fundamental of civic duties.”
Election officials, workers, and even volunteers have been forced to take extraordinary measures to protect themselves, we’re told. Active shooter drills, barricading exercises, trauma kits, bulletproof glass, and bulletproof vests have all become commonplace in election offices across the country. Scary stuff.
And it’s all Trump’s fault, apparently. After a series of legal challenges to the 2020 results were dismissed, Trump “has continued to assert the election was rigged,” the article reads, eluding the important difference between stealing and rigging an election.
The former would mean falsely cast or illegally changed ballots, which is difficult to prove took place on a scale large enough to change the outcome of the election, while latter would mean the sort of things that really did happen in 2020: last-minute changes to how absentee ballots are processed and counted, widespread social media censorship by Big Tech in collusion with corporate media, and the flooding erstwhile nonpartisan local election offices with hundreds of millions in “Zuckbucks” to get out the vote in heavily Democrat areas. And that’s just to name a few of the ways Democrats rigged the last election.
Davidson also says, "The Journal isn’t interested in any of these things and doesn’t mention them in its report. Instead, it presents all the fears and safety concerns of poll workers and election officials as justified. It also presents threats of violence as representative of Trump voters generally, even though it only mentions three cases where individuals have been prosecuted for making threats against election officials."
"The entire frame and premise of the piece is designed to gaslight readers into thinking that election officials nationwide are being hunted by rabid Trump supporters who have been hoodwinked into believing an outlandish conspiracy theory about the 2020 election," he says.
"That’s too bad," Davidson adds, "because there are plenty of election-related stories the Journal could have put its considerable resources into reporting — stories about real problems with the administration of our elections and the people and organizations trying to rig the upcoming presidential election against Trump and Republicans."
He notes a story about Democrat Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul’s Department of Justice conducting a raid on the office of conservative Wausau Mayor Doug Diny in connection with Diny’s removal of an unsecured absentee ballot drop box ahead of Wisconsin’s pre-Election Day voting.
Diny removed the absentee ballot box outside city hall because it wasn’t secure. The city clerk disagreed and decided to bring it back without getting approval from the city council, and then reported it to the local Democrat district attorney, who opened an investigation into Diny. This local story matters because Wisconsin is a key swing state, where the margin of victory for either candidate will likely be extremely close. Unsecured ballot drop boxes are exactly what you don’t want to have in a state like Wisconsin.
Yet they were everywhere in 2020. Of the state’s 72 counties, 66 had absentee ballot drop boxes. Before that election, such boxes had been rare in Wisconsin, as in most states. In July, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, in a 4-3 ruling, reversed a 2022 decision that had declared the widespread use of absentee ballot drop boxes illegal under state law. Local communities, the Court said, could decide for themselves whether or not to use drop boxes and where to place them. The vast majority of counties, it turns out, are opting out of their use, as ballot drop boxes are widely seen as unsecured.
And now, the state’s attorney general is conducting lawfare against a conservative mayor for trying to ensure there are no unsecured drop boxes in his community ahead of the election.
Takeaway.
Davidson concludes:
There are tons of stories like this playing out across the country right now that paint a very different picture of the election, not one of rabid election deniers threatening local officials, but of Democrat attorneys general, donors, and activists trying to rig the election in their favor in a thousand different ways. But corporate media have been noticeably uninterested in these stories, preferring instead to advance a false narrative, as the Journal did, about election officials as beleaguered heroes enduring threats from Trump-worshipping conspiracy theorists and putting their physical safety on the line for the sake of our democracy.
The truth is, every American should want our elections to be above-board, transparent, and honest. We shouldn’t have any unsecured drop boxes anywhere. We shouldn’t have mass mailing of absentee ballots or allow for widespread ballot-harvesting, as was done in 2020 (and is happening again this time in some areas). We should be able to get election results on Election Day, like we used to in this country and like every other developed country in the world does. Demonizing those who point out the problems with our post-Covid election administration won’t restore public confidence in our elections.
The only thing that will do that is to have clean, fair, secure elections again.
And don't feel "dystopian" if you have questions.
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Bold. Be Prayerful. VOTE.