“No Sober Person . . .” May 17, 2021May 17, 2021 But first . . . Talk about unfortunate decisions! As you may have seen, the organizers of New York’s Pride March have banned the contingent of gay cops who march each year. As someone who grew up when it was unimaginable that there could be gay cops — let alone marching proudly, with the Department’s blessing, in a giant, festive, happy parade — I’ve always loved that they march. The March organizers, I think, send a counter-productive message by banning good people who want to join this celebration. I hope they will reverse course. More to say about this, no doubt; but let’s leave it there for now. In response to the widely accepted truth that voter fraud is rare — and therefore no justification for passing laws that make it harder to vote (Friday’s column on voter suppression) — one of you writes: Carl L.: “In case you’ve not yet seen it: 5 minutes of education. Are you sober?” On Election Night 2018, California Central Valley Republican Congressman David Valadao held a 5,000-vote lead over his challenger. The margin was wide enough that the networks even called the race for Valadao, the Republican incumbent. But wait! There were late ballots still to be delivered by the third-party vote harvesters. When those votes came in, they broke so overwhelmingly for Cox (in a historically conservative district, no less) that Valadao’s 5,000-vote victory became an 862-vote loss. Maybe that was just a coincidence. Or maybe not. In the first major election after ballot harvesting was allowed in California, Democrats won every single congressional seat in Orange County, which had been a Republican stronghold for decades. A year earlier, no sober person would have thought that possible. → I watched the video. What strikes me as an entirely sober refutation can be found here (“Did ballot harvesting doom Republicans? More likely, just hard work by Democrats”). Not mentioned, but I think also worth noting, is that in 2017, no sober person would have imagined how badly Trump would behave leading up to the 2018 mid-terms. For example, his standing on the world stage in Helsinki taking Putin’s word over that of 17 U.S. intelligence agencies. Might some conservative Orange County voters — who favor traditional American democracy over Putin’s journalist-murdering, opposition-poisoning autocracy — have felt maybe they should put a check on his power by allowing the House to go blue? To me, that line of reasoning seems a lot more plausible than Eggers’ suggestion in the video that ballots had been altered. I asked Carl: “How would YOU successfully open thousands of sealed, signed, legitimate ballots and change their votes in some undetectable way? You’re a very smart guy. How would you do it? If you can think of no plausible way, then might you begin to doubt fraud WAS perpetrated, as Eggers wants you — and the 7 million others who’ve watched that video — to suspect?” On the video’s charge that some cities have chosen to allow non-citizens to vote in local elections (perhaps on theory of “no taxation without representation?” given that most non-citizen voters pay taxes), Carl is welcome to oppose that – but it has no relevance to federal elections and is in no way whatsoever evidence of voter fraud. Eggers wants people to worry that people are risking jail or deportation to commit fraud – as when he erroneously assailed Ohio for allowing dead people to vote. But those of us who try to get people to register and turn out to the polls know how hard it is even when they face NO jail time or deportation. (And listen, Carl: why do you think Dems are more likely to commit fraud than, say, the Trump voters who stormed the capital and beat police officers with American flags? If there is some miniscule level of voter fraud in swing states, why do you assume it’s committed more by one side that the other?) Do you remember. I asked Carl, when Bush 43 tasked all his state attorneys with trying to find voter fraud . . . but they couldn’t? Do you remember when the Trump Justice Department tried like crazy to find evidence of voter fraud . . . but couldn’t? What do you make of so many partisan Republicans in elected positions — and right-wing judges Trump appointed — finding Giuliani, et al, had failed to provide any evidence of fraud? Why are you, Carl, with the Q-Anon people on this rather than with strongly partisan Republicans like Georgia’s Governor and Secretary of State? I’m glad Carl sent me the video, because so long as millions of people believe these things, we should not dismiss them as fools — we should try to help them see they’ve been fooled. Have a great week!