by WorldTribune Staff, August 20, 2021
“A monthslong investigation into the 2020 presidential vote has found that Democrat-run cities and states used the COVID-19 crisis to change the rules that likely helped Joe Biden’s ascent to the White House,” Paul Bedard at the Washington Examiner reports.
The report also adopted the line of professional Washingtonians: Let's move on (and stop thinking about yesterday and former President Donald Trump).
Trump supporters insist that there will be no future election integrity in the United States until forensic audits put to rest all doubts about the fairness of the election.
“The Republican National Committee report found several cases in which Democrats used the virus as an excuse to scuttle voter identification rules, flood mailboxes with ballots, and limit poll watching and vote-count observations,” Bedard notes.
“The pandemic brought chaos and comprehensive changes to voting processes beginning in the spring primaries and lasting through the post-election process,” Bedard quotes the report issued by the RNC’s Committee on Election Integrity, created by party Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, as concluding.
The Examiner columnist included a copy of the full 23-page document. It stated:
Democrats, including some public officials, used the pandemic as a pretense to achieve long-sought policy goals such as expanded mail voting and the elimination of key safeguards, specifically for absentee voting, such as witness and ID requirements. One of the worst examples is the automatic mailing of ballots to voters who did not request them, including in states such as New Jersey and Nevada that had no tradition of heavy absentee voting and were unprepared to scale up their processes. Another example was how state courts ignored laws enacted by their legislatures such as ballot delivery deadlines. Utilizing emergency powers and the courts, the Democrats attempted, with some success, to tear down these key safeguards that give Americans confidence in our elections.
The RNC also says Democrats strove to keep the ballot-counting process under wraps:
The pandemic also impacted the ability to observe the elections process. The Committee understands the need for social distancing, but officials were often far too aggressive in restricting access of poll watchers and observers. Poll watcher access has been a longstanding issue, and COVID exacerbated it considerably. It is also clear that officials watered down verification processes in order to handle the influx of absentee ballots. This included lowering review standards for counting ballots and insufficient ballot duplication procedures. This easing of standards combined with a lack of observer access to the processing and counting of absentee ballots could not have coincided at a worse time.
The committee’s “Recommendations to the Party” urged special vigilance in dealing with such abuses moving forward. It called for more personnel on the ground and a more aggressive approach in challenging corrupt activities:
The RNC should assist states to create, develop, and execute a robust election integrity plan that includes the recruitment, training, and organization of volunteers at every phase of the election process.
The RNC should do everything possible to ensure states are complying with state and federal election laws. This begins by submitting public information requests to gauge compliance, raising examples of non-compliance with officials, and litigating when issues cannot be resolved informally.
In coordination with the state party, the RNC should actively submit public information requests to states and localities to ensure they comply with the minimum federal requirements of the NVRA and applicable state laws to make reasonable efforts to remove ineligible voters from the voter rolls in a uniform and nondiscriminatory manner. The RNC should litigate against states and localities that are not fulfilling these obligations or who fail to disclose information about their practices.
The RNC should look for offensive litigation opportunities whenever possible.
The committee warned of automatic voter registration opening the door for more election shenanigans and voiced support for strong Voter ID requirements. It also spoke out against ballot harvesting and the use of unsupervised drop boxes for ballots.
In addition, it wrote:
[I]t is imperative that states clean up their voter rolls. This has been an ongoing problem for decades. States taking this seriously will reduce risks of illegal voting, improve election administration, and restore confidence that there is no double voting and only legal votes are counted.
Apparently, however, resolving lingering questions over the very validity of the fraud-plagued 2020 presidential election is not a priority:
The Republican Party must look ahead. The RNC and its leaders look forward to promoting the policies endorsed in this report nationwide and implementing the recommendations specific to the RNC in 2022 and beyond.
