What A Difference A Year Makes

Election Day 2020 was exactly one year ago.

That is, it was supposed to be one year ago based on federal law.

Over 101 million votes were cast early out of 158 million total votes in the Presidential election.

66 million of those were mail ballots that were cast before Election Day.

That is double the number of mail ballots cast four years earlier.

Those mail-in ballots undoubtedly determined the election. The question still remains a year later about how many of those votes were legitimate.

Substantial questions have been raised in at least three states--Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin--that have raised doubts about the integrity of the votes in those states.

In Georgia, the Secretary of State who repeatedly stated there were no problems in the vote in the weeks after the election, has now called for the firing of Fulton County election officials as it has been shown definitively that there were double-counted ballots in the county.

Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/brad-raffensperger-demands-firing-of-fulton-county-georgia-election-officials-after-double-counted-ballots/ar-AAMciM0

Mail-in ballots are much more subject to fraud than in person voting. Mail ballots do not require an actual, living and breathing human being to physically show up at a polling place, show an ID (in some states) and sign the voter roll that can then be compared to the registration record signature.

In order to prevent fraud and insure the integrity of the ballot it is critical that safeguards be applied to mail-in ballots in order to be sure that the voter casting the ballot is the same as the person on the voting rolls.

In August, 2020 I predicted that the mass use of mail-in ballots in the 2020 election was inviting fraud and chaos in a post titled "Magnets for Fraud". 

Moving to mail-in ballots when the entire voting system and infrastructure is geared to in-person voting is an invitation to fraud.

To insure the integrity of the election it would be necessary to have scores of people opening the mail, tabulating results and verifying signatures and voter id's against the registration rolls. It would be many times more laborious than the current system and require more time.

It would also almost guarantee that we would not have election results for days or weeks after the election day.

Mail-in voting (or something more sophisticated technologically) is something that may make sense in the future.

However, it must be accompanied by changes in the systems and election infrastructure that have been developed to service in-person voting over a period of years. It is not realistic that it could be changed in a matter of a couple of months without confusion and chaos occurring. I can think of nothing worse happening in a year when the integrity of the vote is so important to gain public trust.

Due to the traditional requirements for mail-in ballots it is not uncommon to have a fairly high number of rejected mail-in ballots in that voters do not follow the rules.

At least, that was the case before the 2020 election.

All of the rules were "relaxed" in 2020 because of the threat of Covid. The requirements and safeguards were disregarded. Almost every mail ballot was accepted without question.

Most of this was done by unelected election bureaucrats without any constitutionally required legislative approval.

It was predictable that election boards would be overwhelmed. The election systems in almost every state were not designed to capture and certify 100 million mail-in ballots.

As a result, very little was done to prevent fraud and insure that the mail-in ballots were valid.

In Georgia, 1.3 million mail-in votes were counted. That was over 6 times what the count was in 2016.

6.4% of the mail-in ballots were rejected in 2016 for deficiencies.

In 2020, only 0.2% were.

All of this was supposed to be necessary due to the threat of Covid.

However, where are we today?

What is interesting to me is that if we compare new Covid cases in the United States between October 19, 2020 and 2021 (two weeks before November 2) the 7-day average of Covid cases is 33% higher in 2021 than in 2020.

Hospitalizations are 32% higher this year. 

Deaths are 114% higher!. The 7-day average on October 19, 2020 was 729. It was 1,557 in 2021.

This is with vaccines available and 69% of all those voting age (18+) fully vaccinated.

Why aren't all of the mail-in rules being relaxed in 2021? The threat of Covid is much higher this year than in 2020 looking at the numbers.

The reality is that time and experience always allows one to gain better perspective. 

People thought Covid was bad last year. They had no idea things would be worse in a year.

A majority of people also thought that Donald Trump had to be removed from office for the terrible job he and the Republicans were doing on Covid and other issues.

It seems that the last 365 days have given people some additional perspective on that score as well.

This is from an NBC News poll that was released over the weekend on the question of "which party would do a better job"?

When I first saw this graphic on Twitter I thought it might have been photoshopped. It was not.

It is not often in American politics in which we see voters agree by double digit margin spreads on anything.

Biden's job approval is 42% in the same poll.

71% of Americans in the poll say America is headed in the wrong direction. That opinion is shared by 48% of Democrats and 70% of Independents. It should come as no surprise that 94% of Republicans agree.

A year ago Joe Biden told that American people that he was exactly the person we needed to unite the country.

How is "good ole Joe" doing on that score?

Only 28% see him as someone that is doing a good job in uniting the country. 

He scores lower on that trait than any other characteristic that voters were asked to judge his performance.

What a difference a year makes.

Most people waved 2020 good bye thinking things couldn't get any worse.

2021 was going to be so much better.

I have to think there are a fair number of people who might like the chance to turn back the clock right now.

What a difference a year makes.

Truer words were never spoken.