Republicans want elections to be open, fair and honest. Democrats see politics as an issue to incite their base. When House Republicans had control of Congress in 2017-18 they made their top legislative priority tax reform for all Americans. In contrast, Democrats made protecting incumbent Democrat members of Congress their top legislative priority through trying to change election laws. Historically election reforms have passed on an bipartisan basis but the Democrats' HR 1 did not get a single Republican vote.
Now their narrative on election law is falling apart. Democrats have long bemoaned the role of money in politics. They have said that billionaires buy elections. Yet, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton despite being badly outspent. But that example pales in comparison to the recent Democrat primary. As the Wall Street Journal editorializes:
So much for the progressive meme about “buying elections.” Federal disclosures Monday finally revealed the full bill for Mike Bloomberg’s Democratic primary bid: more than $1 billion, for hardly three months of official campaigning. For comparison, that’s more than either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton spent during the whole of the 2016 race.
In the progressive worldview, America should be preparing for the inevitable Bloomberg inauguration, since campaign spending supposedly works on voters like a Jedi mind trick. “Some people have figured out,” Elizabeth Warren told a crowd last year, “it’d be a lot cheaper to spend a few hundred mil just buying the presidency, instead of paying that 2 cent wealth tax.”
This rhetoric looks even more whackadoodle in retrospect. Mr. Bloomberg is now $1 billion poorer, with nothing to show for it except some debate footage stored on his TiVo, and maybe a lousy Bloomberg 2020 T-shirt. (One can be yours for the low price of $15.99 on eBay. )
As we wrote earlier this week, Democrats' vote by mail mantra has some serious consistency issues. Another article by Fred Lucas this week points out how 15 elections have been overturned by courts due to vote by mail fraud. A few bipartisan highlights:
In one of the most high profile cases, the North Carolina Board of Elections decertified the outcome of the 2018 race in the 9th Congressional District and ordered a new election after evidence of absentee ballot fraud emerged. About 61% of all mailed votes were cast for Republican candidate Mark Harris over Democrat Dan McReady, although only 16% of those requesting a ballot were Republicans. In the new election, Republican Dan Bishop stepped in as the party nominee and won. . . .
One of the more complex cases arose in a rural jurisdiction when the Justice Department brought a civil suit against Noxubee County, Mississippi over a massive absentee voter fraud operation run by the local Democratic Party machine. Prosecutors said notaries paid by the machine took ballots from mail boxes and voted the ballots in place of the intended voters.
Democrats know that vote by mail is the most susceptible to vote fraud and needs strong integrity measures. However, Democrats refuse to work together on election issues and continue to play fast and loose with the spirit if not the meaning of the laws. But as to Mike Bloomberg’s billion dollar campaign, the Wall Street Journal also notes:
By the way, where was the progressive outcry last month when Mr. Bloomberg said he would transfer $18 million in unspent campaign funds to the Democratic National Committee? That’s 500 times the usual limit on what an individual donor can give to his national party’s general account. There’s no cap on the amount that a defunct candidate can wire to his party, but this typically isn’t an issue, since most campaigns raise money in $2,800 increments, at most.
Election reforms need to be bipartisan. Right now Democrats are making no effort at bipartisanship and are instead working to change election rules to give them an advantage while turning a blind eye to skirting the law when it's to their advantage.