Trump Wins In Michigan

I have said several times that I don’t know whether the Democrats stole the 2020 election, but I do know that they tried hard to steal it. Their efforts included relaxation of voting standards, especially relating to mail-in voting, wherever they had Democratic Secretaries of State. Typically these changes to voting procedures, not enacted by state legislatures–likely in violation of the Constitution–involved waiving a statutory requirement of witness signatures to verify the identity of the person who mailed in the ballot, or otherwise made it more difficult to check the validity of mailed ballots.

Often, as in Minnesota, such changes were made via collusive litigation supposedly adverse to a Democratic Secretary of State, but actually in corrupt cooperation with that individual who would promptly “settle” the Democrats’ case by agreeing to do whatever the activist plaintiffs wanted. This was done to make voter fraud, which favors Democrats, easier and more widespread.

The Trump campaign filed lawsuits in several jurisdictions, arguing that last-minute changes to voting procedures by Democratic Secretaries of State loyal to the Biden campaign were illegal. Those cases are now wending their way through the courts. In Michigan, Trump won a victory at the trial court level last month, when a state court judge held that the Secretary’s “guidance” on counting of unverified mail-in ballots was issued in violation of Michigan’s Administrative Procedure Act. In other words, the Secretary of State needed to follow the statutorialy-required legal process, not just issue an order to help her party by encouraging cheating.

This is key language from the opinion:

Examining the “Signature Verification and Voter Notification Standards” through that lens, the Court agrees with plaintiffs that the same constitutes a “rule” that should have been promulgated pursuant to the APA’s procedures. The standards are generally applicable to all absent voter ballot applications and absent voter ballots, and it contains a mandatory statement from defendant, this state’s chief election officer, see MCL 168.21, declaring that all local clerks “must perform their signature verification duties” in accordance with the instructions. (Emphasis added). In addition, clerks must presume that signatures are valid. That this presumption is mandatory convinces the Court that it is not merely guidance, but instead is a generally applied standard that implements this state’s signature-matching laws. See MCL 24.207 (defining “rule”)…

This decision might be reversed on appeal, if Democrats hold the majority in the Michigan Supreme Court, but its logic appears sound. The Democrats engaged in a great deal of last-minute chicanery to lower electoral standards last year. They did do by hook or by crook, wherever they had loyal Secretaries of State willing to violate state law to erase protections against voter fraud. Why did they do this? I think it was because they knew voter fraud would help elect Joe Biden. Does anyone have an alternative explanation?

I should add that the Democrats’ assertion that numerous courts have rejected the Trump administration’s claims of voter fraud is fatuous. There is no court in which the necessary discovery on the factual issue of voter fraud has been conducted, let alone a court in which such claims have been rejected. That process, if it occurs in any court, will take at least a year and a half to complete, probably longer.

Some of Trump’s cases have been dismissed on standing or mootness grounds–it is too late, in other words, Joe Biden has been inaugurated–but no court has allowed fact-finding, followed by a ruling that Trump’s claims of voter fraud were factually incorrect, or that Joe Biden carried a particular state, notwithstanding significant illegal votes in his favor. Maybe ongoing litigation will shed light on these factual questions in the years to come. Maybe not.

What we can say for certain is that election integrity is important to a large majority of Americans. In my own allegedly-blue state of Minnesota, 69% of registered voters said in the Thinking Minnesota Poll that they want voter ID. My guess is that the national percentage is even higher.

We have two parties in America: one that wants free, fair and honest elections, with only legal voters casting ballots, and doing so only once, and one that wants ballot harvesting, unverified mail-in voting, unattended drop boxes into which anyone can drop any number of ballots of unknown provenance, and so on. It isn’t hard to see which party has confidence in the power of its ideas to gain the support of most Americans, as long as only actual, living and legal voters cast ballots, and they only vote once.

The integrity of our elections will be one of America’s most important issues in the years to come.

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