By Stephen Macaulay
In 2016 no one, it seems, reportedly not even the campaign itself, thought that Donald Trump would win the election.
But he did. But that didn’t make him entirely happy.
Because he thought Hillary Clinton received too many votes (while she lost in the Electoral College, she actually had some 2.9-million more Americans vote for her; he claimed that was a result of “large scale voter fraud”), in May 2017 he signed an executive order creating the “Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.” It included noted voter-fraud-claiming enthusiast Kris Kobach and Hans von Spakovsky of the outfit that brings you “Project 2025,” The Heritage Foundation.
What did this fair-and-balanced investigatory commission find? Well, evidently nothing. So Trump disbanded it in January 2018.
However, then-press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders maintained the commission ended because many states didn’t provide the requested data. And that there is some “substantial evidence of voter fraud” although no evidence of the evidence was provided.
We all know what happened regarding the 2020 presidential election results.
Long before the election Trump claimed that it was going to be “fixed.” Which is somewhat odd when you think about it. That is, he held the levers of power and wasn’t afraid to use them. If the election was going to be “fixed,” wouldn’t it have been fixed in his favor?
Be that as it may, Biden trounced Trump in terms of the popular vote, garnering some 7-million more than Trump.
You can understand why the man may have blown a gasket seeing a number like that.
Clearly there had to be massive cheating involved . . . but cheating only as it related to the top of the ticket because down-ballot Republicans generally did well, thank you very much.
The Heritage Foundation swung into action. And discovered, for example, four cases of fraud in the Arizona 2020 election — one of which was a Republican casting a Republican vote for her deceased mother. (And you thought only corpses in Chicago vote.)
When the Republican-hired Cyber Ninjas reviewed the results of the 2020 election in Arizona it found . . . 360 more votes for Biden. Clearly that was a team of stealthy ninjas because no one saw that coming.
Despite Trump’s request to the Georgia Secretary of State for the discovery of 11,780 votes that would shift the results from Biden to Trump — a.k.a., “fixing” the results — Heritage found no election fraud in the 2020 Georgia election.
So were there to have been fraud at any scale in Georgia, it would have been the result of Trump requesting it.
Not surprisingly, even when it seemed to be a Biden-Trump rematch in 2024 Trump started warning of “cheating” in the forthcoming election. Now, with Kamala Harris showing significant signs of strength he has significantly amped up his claims of cheating. (It is well known that when people get older their ability to sleep soundly through the night decreases. Not only is Trump 78, but on those sleepless nights he must be vexed by the 306 to 232 Electoral College votes Biden won and the 81,283,501 popular votes Sleepy Joe got to his 74,223,975.)
Claims like Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ “substantial evidence of voter fraud” are simply unfounded. There is no evidence.
Which brings us to the whole issue of cheating, which Trump claims will be rife. Although this could be construed as him thinking he won’t win, if he does and he doesn’t get the numbers that his pal Vladimir Putin got in his last election — 88% -- then that will only be because of cheating.
But there is something to be considered here. Just as it seems odd that Trump was claiming the fix was in against him during the 2020 election — when he was in charge — it is also odd that there is sufficient evidence — evidence beyond a reasonable doubt — that he is a man for whom cheating is not out of the question when it comes to personal benefit.
Remember: Last May he was convicted in New York on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
“Falsifying” — like what he and his associates claim has been done regarding vote totals.