This column reflects the opinion of the writer. Learn about the differences between a news story and an opinion column.
Stand up and be counted
For weeks, national polls have shown Biden about 7.5% ahead of Trump. That’s a greater gap than in any presidential race at this stage since Bob Dole’s run in 1996. Nate Silver gives Trump just a 20% chance of victory. Even Fox News polls report a significant Biden lead.
Yet Donald Trump thunders that the only way he can lose is if the election is rigged.
Investigations have found vanishingly little fraud in presidential election voting. A panel Trump himself charged with investigating fraud in the 2016 election came up dry. Today, FBI Director Christopher Wray says that numerous safeguards ensure reliable election returns, whether voting is in-person or by mail.
Yet Donald Trump fulminates about imminent “massive” voting fraud because of universal mail-in balloting that many states are deploying because of COVID-19.
Such rantings, together with increasingly open threats to interfere with or curtail the election, have taken us to the brink of an abyss. If Donald Trump, William Barr and their minions manage to steal the November election, whether by strong-arming Republican state legislatures to reverse electors’ votes or through violence, our country is lost. We will have become what Trump has transparently desired since 2016: an authoritarian regime with Trump as dictator for life.
America is the oldest, most revered democracy on Earth. We must all, whatever our political stripe, preserve it. Tell your representatives, friends and neighbors that voting—with safeguards to prevent fraud—must proceed, and all votes must be counted.
Brian Keeling
Spokane