By Harlan Edmonds, guest columnists
The U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to intervene in the 2020 election at the behest of a lawsuit brought by Texas. 17 other states had signed on. (Governor Gordon made sure Wyoming didn’t join in.)
This is a much bigger deal than when the Court intervened in the election of 2000, because this time, the issue isn’t confined to the constitutionality of one state’s recount.
In this case, the Court’s inaction will directly (and indirectly) set sweeping precedents about the rules of political engagement for all federal elections to come.
This is because this year’s election was conducted in very new way in some jurisdictions, but not in others.
More specifically, the suit Texas v. Pennsylvania et. al. [Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin] asserts these four defendant states altered election law to such a degree as to violate the requirements of equal protection, the Due Process Clause, and the Electors Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Additionally, these changes were imposed contrary to their own state constitutions and laws. As a result, honest and law abiding states have been harmed.
Americans of good will can disagree over how much criminal fraud occurred last month. In a nation as large as ours, it’s a lead pipe certainty some of it goes on in every election.
But it would be foolish to believe it didn’t radically increase in this one. As every law enforcement investigator and student of human nature knows, criminality directly correlates with motive and opportunity. If any previous presidential election in our history had a greater spike in both, good luck finding it.
Consider motive. The U.S. population has never been more polarized. Conservatives and liberals no longer worship the same God, share the same values, honor the same heroes and history, or agree on the meaning of human existence.
This was reflected in the election of Donald Trump, who conservatives warmed to due to his fearless defense of the traditional American way of life, while liberals came to hate him so absolutely they vowed to destroy him no matter what it took. In the face of a motivation so desperate, personal honor and election law don’t stand a chance.
Then there’s opportunity. A black swan event, in the form of a dangerous but manageable ChiCom virus, furnished cover for some jurisdictions to relax or eliminate longstanding voting laws and standards, create new ones, and to ignore or even encourage rabidly partisan interpretations and revisions of them by local authorities without oversight.
U.S. election law has become a joke in any state or locality with judges and elected officials corrupt enough to replace it with ad hoc rules designed to further their personal political objectives.
But does anyone have any moral or legal right to do such things? Especially in a national election? Of course not.
It’s illegal and down-right treasonous. And it can’t be allowed to stand. Otherwise, public confidence in the fairness, legality, constitutionality, and outcomes of this and future federal elections will collapse beyond recovery. Not only will the cheating continue, it will increase.
Democrats will creatively expand their successful operations of ballot manufacturing and tally manipulation. And Republicans will, of necessity, have to begin doing the same.
Plainly put, if it’s really okay to cheat, then it’s really okay to cheat. Is that what we want?
Now that SCOTUS has signaled that every state, county, city, precinct captain, ward heeler, union boss and polling station vigilante can set the rules, methods, and standards of casting and counting votes in federal elections, then that is precisely what’s going to happen from now on.
Need an example? For years, California’s liberals have been pushing to legalize ballot harvesting from illegal aliens, minors, and felons so as to deepen and perpetuate single party (Democrat) control there.
They already do such things in some local elections, but what’s to stop them from openly doing so in federal elections because SCOTUS decided that Texas v. Pennsylvania et. al. is without merit? Nothing.
So imagine what happens in the next Presidential election when California seeks to have its 55 electoral votes (won with the help of millions of non-citizens and other unlawful voters) counted toward the installation of a U.S. President.
What obligation do other states have to honor, and what obligation does Congress have to accept, California’s electors? None whatsoever. It would be treasonous.
Anyone who says otherwise must then accept the right of other states to insure Republican electors by ballot harvesting from non-citizens and other unlawful voters in say, rabidly pro-American countries like Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
A golden age of election fraud, not the election of any particular president, is what will most effectively hasten the loss of our democracy and the dissolution of our nation, all courtesy of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Harlan Edmonds is a former Wyoming State Legislator and writes from Cheyenne. He can be reached at wyedmonds@reagan.com
