By David J. Gregors
The media really want Trump and MAGA Country to believe that Joe Biden is now president. Forget Jan. 20 or the Electoral College. Biden should be in the White House now, and he is acting like it. Not only do they want you to believe it, they want you to say it. This is all an attempt to set the tone, and in a country that is weary from a pandemic, race riots, impeachment, Russia! Russia! Russia! and a two-year election process that featured a score of angry Democrats attacking everything America stands for, the attempt just might work.
The frustrating thing about this strategy is that it is not only effective, but also completely contrary to the constitutional process. But, as I told a friend today in speaking of renewed calls for lockdowns, the problem with the Constitution is that it relies entirely on people to uphold it. If the people in charge fail to follow it and honor it, then it is just an old piece of paper.
Throughout the week, multiple election officials across the U.S. have said there is no evidence of election fraud, and the Democrats and their media collaborators proudly echo that refrain. The party that told us Russia stole an election from Hillary Clinton now expects us to believe that Biden’s election is a clean and pure as the driven snow. The main problem with this is that the “election officials” do not get to decide whether there was fraud or not. There are active claims in multiple courts. The courts decide what happens now.
The GOP has come up with hundreds of sworn affidavits alleging fraud. There are numerous examples of dead people voting. A social worker in Texas was recently charged with 134 counts of election fraud. Project Veritas found Richard Hopkins, a postal worker in Pennsylvania, who went on record saying he was pressured to backdate late ballots. When pressured to recant, the Washington Post ran a hit piece saying that he recanted and strongly suggested that Project Veritas paid him $130,000 to concoct the story. Later that same day, Project Veritas was able to confirm that he did not recant and released video of an “interrogation” by the Postal Service that suggested he was pressured to recant. To say there is no evidence of voter fraud is not only completely inaccurate, but also completely manipulative.
Here is how this thing works: You have an election. Vote totals come in and are reported. The media get them and make projections based on them. At some point, the media decide that there are so many votes in favor of one candidate, that it is likely the race is over. Often, based on those media projections, one candidate will concede, thus forfeiting any election challenges at least in terms of public perception. Notice that none of this is official. Some time later, each state will certify the votes (or refuse to) and decide who has officially won. If it is a presidential election, the state legislature certifies it and dispatches the electors to the Electoral College for the final vote. The U.S. House and Senate then meet to sign off on the results. Now, in this whole process, we are currently at the “media projection part.” No candidate has conceded, and litigation is pending.
Conventional wisdom says that recounts and litigation will not reverse the current result of the election. Since when has conventional wisdom ever applied to Donald Trump? The affidavits are enough to give rise to a case or controversy for a court to hear. A legal complaint is generated with nothing more than mere allegations. The court agrees to hear it, and the suit can proceed. Once the suit commences, the parties are able to conduct discovery to find evidence. You are not required to have evidence before the lawsuit. Saying there is no evidence of allegations at the beginning of a lawsuit is nothing more than a smokescreen intended to fool people who do not know any better.
There is an analogy in the criminal law that may be useful. The founders did not want the government to be empowered to go fishing through your personal papers for a crime without any good reason, and thus, we have the Fourth Amendment. The police need a search warrant to try to find evidence. To get a warrant, an officer must sign an affidavit saying that there is probable cause to believe that some crime was committed, and there is a likelihood that there is evidence of the crime in a certain place. The judge must then determine whether the burden of probable cause has been met. Notice what is not required to get a search warrant: evidence. The purpose of the warrant is to obtain evidence.
Now applied to the election, you can see that the civil suits proceed in much the same way. The judge in a civil suit will order discovery to find evidence. When these “election officials” say there is no evidence, they are lying. It might turn out that there is little to no evidence, but as the subject of litigation, you do not get to declare there is no evidence and demand that the matter be ended. Similarly, someone subject to a search warrant does not get to scream “there is no evidence here” from behind the door of their meth lab and expect the matter to be concluded. The law does not work this way, and yet, the Democrats and their media collaborators are hoping you are dumb enough to think it does.
The hard truth of this may be that the election was indeed stolen, but that it may have been done in such a way that we will never be able to know about it. But the process must play out. It is Donald Trump’s right as a candidate to demand it, and it is our right as Americans to know whether our elections can be trusted.
David J. Gregors received his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Religious Studies, Juris Doctor, and Master of Laws (LLM) in Health Law and Public Policy. He is currently an attorney in the state of Florida. Follow on Twitter @davidgregors.
