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Remedy for Election Irregularities and Vote Fraud is Found in the Constitution

Originally published at The Epoch Times

The only source of legitimacy of government in America is from the people — that is the voters rather than the vote counters.

At the time of the founding of the United States, Samuel Adams stated, “Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that…he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.”

At a turning point in the survival of the nation after the Civil War’s bloodiest battle, Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, stating that “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Fast forward to the present, two years into Donald Trump’s Presidency, almost exactly two years before she passed away, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg reminded us that “We have the oldest written constitution still in force in the world, and it starts out with three words, “We, the people.”

It’s necessary to investigate and correct vote counting irregularities and ballot fraud in Michigan and other states with a high incidence because honest elections are the fundamental source of legitimacy of the United States government. Because that legitimacy only comes from the people, it would be a betrayal of who we are — a sort of national suicide — to allow massive vote counting irregularities and ballot fraud in multiple states to stand.   

After attempting but failing to remove Trump from office through the Mueller Commission’s alleged Russian collusion investigation and Nancy Pelosi’s impeachment hearings, it should come as no surprise that Democratic Party operatives seized on the Corona Virus crisis in Trump’s fourth year. They took advantage of the lockdowns and public fear and pushed specific actions to game the system to increase their delivery of votes leading up to Election Day on November 3. First they legitimized the wholesale distribution of ballots and mail-in balloting, and then they blanketed the swing states with armies of lawyers filing suits to challenge voter ID laws, signature verification laws and extending the deadlines for mail-in ballots, which was first approved by a Michigan appellate judge in September, but then reversed in October by the Michigan Court of Appeals.  The fact is that changing rules in these ways in Michigan and the other key swing states in the months leading up to Election Day created ambiguities that contributed to voting irregularities, such as filing fraudulent ballots from dead people still on the voter rolls, ballot harvesting, ballot dumps and other fraud and poll place shenanigans.  

While many have justified taking extreme action to stop Trump because they don’t like his manner of talking and tweeting, the integrity of elections is far more important than political  personalities, and certainly bigger than the Presidency itself.  Electoral integrity is the very bedrock of our constitutional republic and the democratic process.

With the mainstream media coverage of the Trump administration continuing to be 90% negative and state officials’ and lower courts’ inclination to take the course of denial rather than deal with the shame of widespread vote fraud, the way forward continues to be an uphill battle.  With distrust, division and corruption being so prevalent — particularly in the big cities of the contested states — as to nullify the seriousness of over 500 affidavits of vote fraud, computer driven vote manipulation and polling place irregularities, the Supreme Court may be compelled to adjudicate. There are pending cases in Federal District Courts in Pennsylvania and Georgia that are likely to rise to the Supreme Court’s adjudication.  With the wheels of justice turning toward the Supreme Court state legislators and their electors in contested states should refrain from certifying the vote pending a SCOTUS ruling.   

Few may realize it, but the genius of the Constitution provides a way forward in Presidential elections should either the states’ failure to certify their vote or the Court’s ruling to call a new election or disqualify the certification of votes in contested states deny either candidate from achieving the necessary 270 Electoral College votes. In such unusual circumstances, Article II of the Constitution has a provision to put the election of the President in hands of the U.S. House of Representatives — the people’s house — with each state getting one vote, with that vote being decided by the weighting of Party representation in each state. As a result of the November 3 election, with 27 states now having more Republican than Democratic Congressmen, and 20 states having more Democratic than Republican Congressmen, and three states being evenly split,  the Presidential election would be called for Trump. 

Even if it delays inauguration day, we must see this process through to identify and eliminate election and vote fraud problems, or we may never again have free and safe elections.  We simply cannot remain a free people with a government that is of the people, by the people and for the people if we fail to defend and uphold the Constitution and fail to restore integrity and trust to the electoral process.

Scott S. Powell

Senior Fellow, Center on Wealth and Poverty
Scott Powell has enjoyed a career split between theory and practice with over 25 years of experience as an entrepreneur and rainmaker in several industries. He joins the Discovery Institute after having been a fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution for six years and serving as a managing partner at a consulting firm, RemingtonRand. His research and writing has resulted in over 250 published articles on economics, business and regulation. Scott Powell graduated from the University of Chicago with honors (B.A. and M.A.) and received his Ph.D. in political and economic theory from Boston University in 1987, writing his dissertation on the determinants of entrepreneurial activity and economic growth.