OPINION:
It seems questioning election results is good — if you’re a Democrat that is.
Almost two and a half years after losing the Georgia gubernatorial contest, Stacey Abrams maintains the election was stolen from her.
Testifying before the U.S. Senate on election integrity — of all topics — Mrs. Abrams refused to concede she lost the 2018 contest.
Asked by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, “Yes or no, do you still maintain the 2018 election was stolen?,” Mrs. Abrams squirmed.
“It was stolen from the voters of Georgia,” she replied. “We do not know what they would have done because not every eligible Georgian was permitted to participate fully in the election.”
Mrs. Abrams continued: “Brian Kemp won under the rules that were in place. … I will continue to disagree with the system until it is fixed.”
Mrs. Abrams’ argument is not unlike former President Donald J. Trump’s — you know, the one the mainstream media as dubbed as “The Big Lie,” of the election being stolen from him because the rules of the game were changed beforehand. Yet, Mrs. Abrams will be able to get away with it — because no one will press will call her out on it.
If the argument were applied equally — to both parties — then the mainstream media would be shouting at the rooftops how Mrs. Abrams’ ongoing campaign is delegitimizing our electoral process, upending a legitimate election. Yet, crickets.
It should come as no surprise. After Mr. Trump won the presidency in 2016, Democrats and the mainstream media used every tool at their disposal to delegitimize the election. His opponent, Hillary Clinton, blamed the Russians, called him “illegitimate,” and the press happily obliged her in perpetuating the narrative — despite the harm it did to the electorate.
In 2018, before the midterm elections, nearly two in five American voters didn’t believe U.S. elections were fair, according to an NPR/Marist poll. At the time, non-White voters, women and Democrats all reported substantially greater doubts about the fairness of the elections compared to Republicans, 91 percent of whom believe elections are fair.
Forty-seven percent of the poll’s respondents said they thought it was either likely or very likely that not all votes would be counted in November, driven by almost 60% of non-White voters who thought there would be an incorrect tabulation.
Yet no stories were written to subdue these fears. No stories were produced that defended the integrity of our electoral system. Trump won, so anything was possible. Election results should be questioned.
Now that the shoe is on the other foot — and Republicans are second-guessing the validity of the electoral process — the press is going mad, claiming Republicans were brainwashed into believing a “big lie” that the election was stolen.
It seems to me election integrity is a bipartisan issue. When your team loses, you want to be 100% sure your vote counted and have faith in the process. That’s why improving our state election laws is vitally important. Reforms should be made soberly, transparently and without hyperpartisanship and ramped-up rhetoric. Both sides want it. And need it.
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