President Trump says that he lost the election because it was rigged. But he had four years to shore up election security, so isn’t he admitting he was incompetent in protecting free and fair elections?
Or to the contrary, Trump and his Republican minions did their best to suppress voters, delay the mail, and sow discord and doubt...and Trump still lost.
And Trump appointed many Republican judges and still can’t get courts to give him the election.
Any way you look at it, incompetence.
The truth is a bit more complicated. Elections run by 50 states, each with varied voting machines and systems are really difficult to systematically corrupt. Election officials, Republican and Democrat, and their generally nonpartisan and patriotic workers and volunteers do a great job of administering fair elections and should be honored for their work, especially in the middle of a pandemic.
Without question, much should be done to restore the Voting Rights Act and to modernize and update voting procedures, especially around the issue of voting by mail. There is little doubt (at least in my mind) that the delay of mailed ballots past election day, heavily Democratic ballots, likely reduced Democrats’ votes in many key races.
But the fact is that the turnout in the 2020 election was huge, even with voter and vote suppression. When House and Senate votes are totaled, I suspect we will see the same results produced in previous elections: Democrats get more votes but fewer seats because of partisan gerrymandering.
There are structural disadvantages for Democrats that make it difficult to control all three branches of government, and this should be taken into account when analyzing election results. My view is that Democrats did a pretty good job and should be congratulated.