Even a broken clock is right twice a day. However, I was scrolling through Twitter this morning, and nearly fell over when I saw a tweet from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that I could thoroughly support. I think the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg may have sent her over the edge because she put out the exact opposite of the Democrat line on this election:
I am voting early and in person.
What’s your voting plan?
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) September 20, 2020
As we all know, Democrats have been pushing the need for mail-in voting. To execute their election strategy, which ideally includes ballot harvesting, they depend on people mailing in their vote or handing it to an activist on their porch. Additionally, they have already filed lawsuits to extend the acceptance period for mail-in ballots. This move is despite all of the serious problems with the process we have seen historically and recently.
An election in Paterson, New Jersey, was just overturned because of mail-in voter fraud. In Queens, near AOC’s district, one in five voters was disenfranchised in a Democrat primary election. Yet lawsuits in Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania have seen initial court rulings that election deadlines for the receipt and postmark of mail-in votes should be extended. Novel swing state strategy for sure.
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It is expected that all these decisions will be appealed. The Trump campaign has filed a lawsuit to stop New Jersey from conducting a full mail-in process, alleging it violates federal election law. The five states that have entirely transitioned to mail-in voting are one thing. States attempting to do it for the first time this cycle have already seen severe problems and have already demonstrated the risk of disenfranchising voters.
However, it seems the Democrats’ freak-out over postal service funding may have backfired. Record numbers of voters showed up in person at the polls when early voting started in Fairfax, Virginia. According to reporters on the ground, people were skeptical of the post office handling their ballots correctly. Hopefully, this is a trend.
Massive line of voters in Fairfax, Virginia, on the FIRST DAY of in-person early voting. Some voters say they showed up because they lost faith in USPS to deliver ballots. Officials tell CNN they've never seen anything like this on Day One. pic.twitter.com/uFDSfMINWX
— Marshall Cohen (@MarshallCohen) September 18, 2020
There is nothing more important in November than having the majority of Americans confident in the outcome of the election. In contrast, Democrats and their allies have clearly signaled that they expect the results on election night to change over time. This prediction is a terrible one in a deeply divided electorate. We saw this in California in 2018 when several Republican wins on election night were overturned as ballots were harvested and counted under a new law. The validity of those Democrat wins is still questioned in local districts.
To have that happen at the national level in 2020 would be catastrophic. With a SCOTUS seat that may still be open beyond Election Day, it is even more critical for the country to have confidence in the vote. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez putting the “vote in person” message out to her 8.6 million followers is a great start. Republicans were already far more likely to indicate they would vote in person. Hopefully, AOC can motivate voters on the other side to do the same.
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The good news is the health experts, including Drs. Fauci and Birx, agree that voting in person can be done safely. And every American who has gone to Walmart or Starbucks since the pandemic began knows this is the case. We can all stand in a line safely and patiently. It is of the utmost importance we do this through the early voting period and right through Election Day.
Talk to your friends and family. Make sure they know that voters appear to be disenfranchised at a rate of about one in five through mail-in voting. This fact was confirmed in an analysis from 2012-2018 and was also the rate in the Queens, N.Y., primary. In Queens, some voters never received a ballot, and others were thrown out for lack of a postmark or other technical reasons.
Democrats have already warned of “violence in the streets” through the Transition Integrity Project. Their allies in the media and leading social media have already started to prepare Americans for a drawn-out process. With the death of Justice Ginsburg, calls for violence are increasing in anticipation of a nomination. Post-election chaos would compound this to levels that would shock most Americans.
The best way to prevent this is to have the vast majority of voters showing up in person to the polls. If the septuagenarian Democrat nominee Joe Biden can do it for the Delaware primary, so can 90% of America. Join with AOC and me. Prevent post-election chaos and vote in person.
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