Regarding voting by undocumented immigrants, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has argued: “We all know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections. But it’s not been something that is easily provable. We don’t have that number.”
The reason for Johnson’s inability to quantify this is quite simple — the problem doesn’t exist. As the Cato Institute explains, “Noncitizens don’t illegally vote in detectable numbers.”
Continuing in this evidence-free zone, Heritage Foundation President Dr. Kevin Roberts recently stated that he would accept the results of the 2024 election “if there isn’t massive fraud like there was in 2020.”
When confronted with the Heritage Foundation’s own study finding just 1513 cases of voter fraud in the U.S. since 1982, Roberts explained that this is “Because it’s very hard to document and the Democratic Party is very good at fraud.”
This fanciful posturing by Republicans regarding widespread election fraud is reminiscent of White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows’ strongly held belief that Italian satellites changed votes in the 2020 election.
The absurdity and inbuilt immunity from evidence characterizing many of the GOP’s election claims brings to mind a story told by the late comedian George Carlin: “While I was out, beings from another dimension entered my apartment and replaced everything with identical items.”
It’s clear that there are significant doubts about election integrity among the U.S. population largely because of the false narratives relentlessly pushed by former president Donald Trump and his allies.
Please remember that Trump accused Senator Ted Cruz of fraud in the Iowa Caucuses, said he wouldn’t accept the results of the 2016 election unless he won, never accepted that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, and said months ahead of the 2020 election that the only way he could lose is if the election is rigged.
Let’s heed the words of democracy watchdog organization Freedom House, from its report ‘Democracy in Retreat’:
“President Trump has assailed essential institutions and traditions including the separation of powers, a free press, an independent judiciary, the impartial delivery of justice, safeguards against corruption, and most disturbingly, the legitimacy of elections.”
Terry Hansen
Milwaukee, WI