Columnist: Democrats engineering an election crisis

FPI / September 30, 2020

While their allies in the media provide them cover by reporting daily on invented right-wing election shenanigans, Democrats have launched numerous attempts to subvert the 2020 electoral process, a columnist wrote.

"Among Democrats and their media allies, it is an article of faith that Donald Trump is plotting to steal the 2020 election," Kevin Portteus, professor of politics and director of American studies at Hillsdale College, noted in a Sept. 28 op-ed for The Federalist.

“Accuse your enemies of what you are doing.” Some variation of this quote has been attributed to leftists from Karl Marx to Vladimir Lenin to Joseph Goebbels to Saul Alinsky.

"The quote’s origin may be unknowable, but the substance is perfectly accurate," Portteus noted. "While the media indulges the Left’s paranoid fantasies about right-wing electoral subversion, the actual history of 2020 reveals a vast array of attempts by Democrats and left-wing activists to undermine the electoral process."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi got the election subversion ball rolling in March when she "attempted to force her 1,400-page coronavirus bill on the country," Portteus wrote.

"Buried beneath all the pork spending were provisions that would have mandated a national system of vote-by-mail — with all the fraud, corruption, and sheer incompetence that would entail."

Pelosi sought to combine national mail-in voting with legalized “ballot harvesting,” allowing third parties to collect ballots, fill them out, and deliver them to polling places.

House Majority Whip James Clyburn, South Carolina Democrat, called the coronavirus crisis “a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.”

Pelosi's bill went nowhere, but "was a foretaste of what unfolded in the months to come," Portteus noted:

• In Nevada, without any input from the state’s chief election official, Democrat Gov. Steve Sisolak and the Democrat-controlled legislature enacted a law mandating ballots to be mailed to every voter. The legislation also legalizes ballot harvesting in the state.

• In North Carolina, Democrats and Republicans on the state Board of Elections reached an agreement to loosen mail-in ballot restrictions, only to have both board Republicans resign in protest, claiming they had been deceived about the agreement by North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat.

• In Texas, Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins, a Democrat, went to court to win permission to mail ballots to every voter in the county (Houston is located in Harris County). A lower court granted the request, but the Texas Supreme Court has stayed the order, and the case is now pending before that court.

• In Florida, failed Democrat presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg said he would pay off the debts of tens of thousands of felons so they would be eligible to vote in November. The move has prompted the Florida attorney general to request an investigation.

• In Pennsylvania, Democrats sued to change a law which mandates mailed ballots must be received by Election Day in order to be counted. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court sided with the Democratic Party on loosening the deadline restrictions.

• In Michigan, Court of Claims Judge Cynthia Stephens "undertook a massive, unilateral rewriting of Michigan election law," Portteus noted. Stephens struck down the law requiring mailed ballots to be received by election day. Instead, she announced any ballots postmarked by Nov. 2 and received up to 14 days <em>after</em> the election would be counted. Stephens’s ruling also legalizes ballot harvesting, previously banned under Michigan law.

Portteus concluded: "Forget about the fevered dreams of 'blue-check' journalists and Democratic party operatives. While they conjure and propagate conspiracy theories, they and their friends are guilty of a vast array of efforts to subvert the will of the people and their elected representatives, create chaos and confusion on election day, and facilitate massive election irregularities in critical swing states all over the country."

Free Press International