OK, I’m chiming in on the topic of stealing the election here. Given trump’s epic level of corruption and dishonesty, the widespread concerns about this are not surprising.
One theory has it that the ballots will be misreported by the states, or reported too late (as there is a time limit for that).
I could be wrong here – and please chime in if you have evidence to the contrary – but here is how I see that. Secretaries of State (or of Commonwealth, in a few states) are responsible for this reporting, as I understand it. A majority of Electoral College votes will be reported by Democrat Secretaries of State.
270 Electoral College votes are required, at minimum, to win. 279 Electoral College votes will be coming from states that I consider safe for Democrats. My safe states include Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. In fact, I do not believe that trump won those states in 2016, but that is another discussion. All 3 of these states have Democratic governors and Secretaries of State since the 2018 elections went full-bore anti-trump. I am not including as safe states others that Biden would clearly win if the election were held today and if it went according to the polls, so that includes NC, AZ, GA, FL, TX and probably several others. The graphic I have attached shows which states I expect to vote for Biden as non-swing states, and their SoSs.
2 of the presumably pro-Biden states have Republican Secretaries of State: Maryland and Nevada. If we suppose those SoSs to be unreliable, we can nonetheless recoup their Electoral College votes from 2 “Republican” states that have Democratic SoSs: North Carolina and Arizona. It is very likely that Biden will win these states, again based on current polling; if that is the case, it is also unlikely that their Secretaries would participate in a trump vote scam.
As I see it, there are 3 other main ways the Republican/fascist party might try to steal the election:
- claiming that mail-in ballots are fraudulent, as trump is already doing repeatedly
- arranging for mail-in ballots to arrive after the deadline by screwing with the Post Office, as trump is also already doing
- voting machine fraud. This is the one we are not talking about, but there is ample evidence the machines are susceptible to it.
No one will really be deceived by such tactics. But it is possible that the Resident fascist will try to hold onto power, as others have pointed out. In such an instance, it may be that our only option is mass protest until the real election results are honored.
This, I believe, is the true purpose behind trump’s secret police move in Portland: He is testing it for after he loses the election, and claims to have “won” it.
We cannot let it succeed.
My sincerest thanks go out to all those who, in the middle of a pandemic and an impending economic depression, are prepared to stand for Democracy, and to stand against racism, police violence and fascism.
Kia kaha, e hoa ma! Stand strong, friends.