Progressives have a new confidence following the election of Joe Biden, the turmoil at the Capitol, and now the second impeachment of Donald Trump. Their newfound buoyancy of spirit is such they’ve begun vocally supporting efforts at censorship and blacklists in ways they might have shied away from before. As a final humiliation, they’re rather aggressively now demanding conservatives assume the position and apologize for believing the 2020 election might have had some security and integrity problems. Apologize so the nation can start to heal, the message goes.
“Republican lawmakers who objected to the electoral vote results on the grounds of mythical election fraud should immediately and publicly apologize, repudiate their lies and admit that Joe Biden won the election fairly,” wrote The New York Times editorial board Wednesday.
David Hogg, a school shooting survivor who has become a leading activist on the left as a co-founder of the March For Our Lives movement, said this to his one million followers on Twitter.
“You want to [sic] country to heal and unify? Good first step would be admitting you were wrong there was no voter fraud that changed the election and that Joe Biden is our president. Come out and say it loud and clear now before even more people die.”
And in Georgia, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican, has begun stripping leadership positions from other Republicans in the state legislature who supported efforts to investigate fraud in the state’s handling of the election. Or, as MSNBC Produce Kyle Griffin put it on Twitter, those “who backed attempts to overturn the presidential vote over baseless allegations of irregularities.”
But these progressive mouthpieces should be conscious of their rhetoric because, as a recent arrest in Texas and an investigation out of D.C. are beginning to prove, allegations of “irregularities” in the 2020 election are anything but “baseless.”
In Georgia, for example, there were nearly 5,000 absentee voters in the state who listed their residence as a non-residential address, against the law in Georgia. Tom Fitton, head of Washington D.C.’s Judicial Watch, has been looking into the data.
"[W]e just collected voter data showing that more than 4,700 absentee voters in the presidential election listed non-residential addresses as their places of residence. Georgia law requires citizens registering to vote to reside “in that place in which such person’s habitation is fixed …”
"We shared our data with the Georgia Secretary of State and requested an investigation.
A total of 9,989 Georgia voters seem to be registered at non-residential addresses: 1,882 at commercial addresses, 1,336 registered at county and state governmental buildings, and 6,735 at either hotels or motels."
If breaking state voter laws and listing as a primary address the FedEx store down the street isn’t legitimately considered an “irregularity,” what on Earth is?
Then there’s the story of Rachel Rodriguez of Texas, exposed last fall by a Project Veritas undercover video sting in which she bragged about her illegal behavior regarding vote harvesting. She was arrested and charged this week and charged with counts of “election fraud, illegal voting, unlawfully assisting people voting by mail and unlawfully possessing an official ballot.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton released a statement upon apprehension of Rodriquez, who admitted in the hours-long undercover video series she knew what she was doing was against the law.
“Many continue to claim that there’s no such thing as election fraud. We’ve always known that such a claim is false and misleading, and today we have additional hard evidence. This is a victory for election integrity and a strong signal that anyone who attempts to defraud the people of Texas, deprive them of their vote, or undermine the integrity of elections will be brought to justice,” said Attorney General Paxton. “The shocking and blatantly illegal action documented by Project Veritas demonstrates a form of election fraud my office continually investigates and prosecutes. I am fiercely committed to ensuring the voting process is secure and fair throughout the state, and my office is prepared to assist any Texas county in combating this insidious, un-American form of fraud.”
If a woman admits to breaking Texas state voter law, that seems to demolish the notion that voter fraud in Texas is “baseless.” And it goes without saying that violating law is, by definition, an “irregularity.”
So, no, progressives, conservatives have no responsibility to help heal the nation by ignoring what happened in at least two states and apologizing for having concerns about it. In fact, their responsibility – and it should be the responsibility of progressives, as well – is to find out if these election “irregularities” happened in other states and clean up the system so it doesn’t happen again.
Sarah Lee is a freelance writer and policy wonk living and working in Washington, DC.