Those Who Cast the Votes Determine Nothing…

by Joseph DeMaio, ©2022

(Jan. 14, 2022) — Last Thursday, the Goof went back to the Capitol after learning that the Supreme Court had slapped down his “work-around” edict to OSHA.  Speaking of getting slapped around, he emerged – agitated as a wet alley cat – from a Senate Democrats’ caucus luncheon meeting after learning that his efforts to cram two “election reform” bills through the Senate – S.2747 and H.R. 4 – by first destroying the filibuster would also be thwarted.  Bummer, dude.

Thanks to Senators Joe Manchin (D. W. VA) and Kyrsten Sinema (D. AZ), the Goof was informed that his desire to assassinate the filibuster was also dead.  On cue, he immediately launched into yet another adolescent diatribe regarding that failure.

He literally shouted at reporters that “[t]he state legislative bodies continue to change the law, not as to who can vote, but who gets to count the vote. Count the vote! Count the vote! It’s about election subversion! Not just whether or not people get to vote!”  He then repeated “Who counts the vote? That’s what this is about, that’s what makes this so different than anything else we’ve ever done!”  Whether or not and to what extent states are altering their own laws regarding the “counting” of votes is debatable and, in any event, irrelevant to the Goof’s complaint.

If the Goof’s rant is taken at face value, the “what this is about” is not the right to vote or where, when and how to vote.  Instead, it is about “who counts the vote” and why the present situation “makes this so different than anything else we’ve ever done!”

Really? 

Memo to the Goof and his handlers: you might want to do a little more historical research before invoking a concept rumored to have originated with another autocrat named “Joe”: Joseph V. Stalin.  For those unfamiliar with Stalin, he was the iron-fisted Communist dictator of the Soviet Union between 1924 and his death in 1953.  While many may debate the issue of whether Stalin actually coined the phrase, none would dispute that it is generally attributed to him, even as an aphorism, or claim that it originated instead with Mahatma Gandhi or Mother Teresa.

The phrase captures the importance of election integrity and preservation of the trust owed to an electorate, assuring them that only votes that are cast legally and lawfully will be included in the “count” of who actually won an election.  That trust is undermined when the ministerial function of “counting” votes cast on compromised or even counterfeit ballots infects the process.  If a ballot, for whatever reason, is deemed by the “counters” to be “bad” but nonetheless put into the pile to be “counted” as “good,” that is erosive of public trust in the process.  It is also fraudulent.  Similarly, if a ballot is deemed by the “counters” to be “good” but nonetheless discarded into the pile to be “not counted,” that also erodes public trust and, in addition, is fraudulent.

Accordingly, the people (and machines) that matter are those actually “counting” the votes and who operate under policies and laws enacted with the ostensible purpose of preserving public trust and confidence that the “system” is fair and not “tilted” in favor of one side or the other.

As noted here, the Goofball’s attempt to ram through these two faulty bills constitutes an effort to purportedly save democracy…, by first destroying it.  The Goof claims that only through the enactment of S.2747 and H.R. 4 will the “grave threat” to democracy and the Republic presented by States enacting their own election laws – as guaranteed to them under the Constitution – be thwarted.

As usual, he and his handlers are wrong.  By seeking to federalize future elections nationwide; by expanding the potentials for voter and elections chicanery as warned against in the bipartisan 2005 Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform; and by completely disregarding the pitfalls and warnings of the Carter-Baker Report regarding voter identification and mail-in ballots, both S.2747 and H.R. 4 – despite their cosmetically-pleasing titles – would “tilt,” perhaps forever, the playing field in favor of the Democrats and against any and all who would dare to challenge them in the future.

The preservation of the filibuster, confirmed by Senators Manchin and Sinema, will also have the salutary effect of preserving democracy, States’ rights and the Republic, at least as we have known it in the past.

Stated otherwise: “Those who cast the votes determine nothing; those who count the votes determine everything.”  Joe.