The One Issue That Can Unite All Americans

Americans are divided. Half see Donald Trump as a hero while the other half sees him as a new Hitler. Half see Kamala Harris as a champion for equal opportunity and women’s rights, while others see her as incapable of leading our country.

It reminds me of those images that look like a duck or a rabbit, a young woman or old crone,

Americans are divided. Half see Donald Trump as a hero while the other half sees him as a new Hitler. Half see Kamala Harris as a champion for equal opportunity and women’s rights, while others see her as incapable of leading our country.

It reminds me of those images that look like a duck or a rabbit, a young woman or old crone, and which way is the man facing?

It all depends on your perspective. You may see it only one way, or both ways.

There is another image that is making the rounds on the Internet. It’s a chart of election results by political party for 2012 through 2024.

Some people see the tall blue line for 2020 and compare it to the other blue lines. “How could Democrats get 65 million votes in 2012, 2020 and 2024, but 81 million votes in 2020?” “There must have been cheating!” they say.

Others compare the blue line in 2020 with the blue line from 2024 and say “How could Democrats get 81 million votes in 2020, but only 67 million in 2024?” “Where did those 14 million votes go? There must have been cheating!”

Distrust in election results has increased dramatically over the last 12 years. In 2016, Hillary Clinton claimed her election was stolen, as did Stacy Abrams in Georgia and a host of other Democrats in the past. Trump claimed his loss in 2020 was due to rampant cheating while counting was paused simultaneously in six swing states.

Rasmussen has polled Americans about election cheating for years and has found alarming results—from both sides.

In late October of 2024, 49% of likely U.S. Voters believed there are election workers and officials who have enabled fraud in elections.

In July 2024, 62% of Americans were concerned about cheating, This includes 83% who voted for Trump and 42% who voted for Biden in 2020.

In April of 2024, 28% said they would be willing to cheat in an election if it would help their preferred candidate.

In December of 2023, respondents actually admitted they have participated in election fraud! 21% said they “filled out a ballot, in part or in full, on behalf of a friend or family member, such as a spouse or child…” And 17% of mail-in voters said for 2020, “they cast a ballot in a state where they were no longer a permanent resident.” Considering that this is illegal, one might wonder if those numbers might have been bigger.

Distrust in elections is nothing new. Many of us remember the agonizing 36 days of counting “hanging chads” in the 2000 contest between Bush and Gore, and the 47 lawsuits that ensued.

New laws were passed, but clearly they have done nothing to give voters—from either political party—confidence that their votes will be counted honestly and accurately. We now have states with universal mail-in voting, ballots mailed by the millions to inaccurate addresses, and voting machines that can be hacked with a ballpoint pen. And, yes, they ARE connected to the Internet.

And who is behind the cheating? Political parties, or foreign countries wishing to select candidates of their choice?

Election integrity is the one issue that can unite all Americans. Whether we’re Democrats Republicans, or Independents, liberals or conservatives, in a party primary or general election, we want to be certain that only eligible voters will vote, and we want our election officials to be able to prove it.

The changes made since Bush v. Gore in 2000 have made things worse, not better. To avoid hanging chads, we went to touchscreens, which seem to be even less reliable and cost millions of dollars.

To save Americans from the risk of getting COVID while voting in 2020, there were dramatic increases in absentee and mail-in voting, but the essential safeguards for verifying the signatures were actually reduced.

State voter databases are a complete mess, with one independent nonpartisan group reporting 29 million ineligible voter registrations across 21 states, 10 million votes cast by those “voters,” and 2 million more votes cast in 2022 than voters who voted. This resulted in an average error rate of 13% (13 in 100), when the permitted error rate is .000008% (1/125,000).

Absentee ballots are being mailed to the wrong addresses and lost in the mail. Almost every country that has tried mail-in voting has gone back to paper ballots.

Centralized counting of paper ballots has led to claims that observers are not allowed to monitor the process and the chain of custody for the ballots is often broken so no recounts can be done accurately.

In earlier times, ballots were counted by hand at the precinct level and results were announced in a few hours.

If you think Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump because of election fraud, or if you think Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden because of election fraud, or if you think Kamala Harris lost to Donald Trump due to election fraud, you must agree that the processes and procedures we currently use to count votes are a miserable failure and must be fixed immediately.

The good news is that with proper oversight, hand counting paper ballots with two-party observers at the precinct level is quick, easy, accurate and provable.