Within the last decade, certain people have made accusations with no proof about vote fraud.  Mythical stories of dead people committing vote fraud have caused certain people to pass laws and change established norms of vote behavior, all in the noble quest to stop the theft of choice and to prevent American democracy from turning into American tyranny.  Now real proof of vote fraud, vote theft, and vote tyranny has emerged.  Ironically the vote fraud, vote theft, and vote tyranny are being committed by the same certain people who made the accusations and passed the laws!!! 

The certain people who are the kettle calling the pot black, the certain people who are now guilty of doing what they FALSELY accused others of, are Republicans on both the national and state level.  Republican Party membership numbers are declining in all demographic categories except 2, white non-Hispanic voters and rural America voters both of which themselves are a declining share of a growing diversified American electorate. 

Faced with these political realities within the last decade, Republicans started out by just making false accusations about vote fraud and passing un-needed laws that made voting more difficult, now they have ended up in 2018 with themselves being guilty of vote fraud, vote theft, and vote tyranny. 

The starting point that eventually led to Republican vote fraud, vote theft and vote tyranny was a $30 million Republican project imitative called REDMAP (REDistricting MAjority Project), which was the most organized effort by one political party (Republicans) to draw electoral districts that advantaged themselves and disadvantaged their opponents (Democrats) in American history.  In other words, Republicans went into overdrive committing massive partisan gerrymandering on both the state and national levels. 

Beginning in 2010 REDMAP produced Republican election victories of governorships and state legislatures for the sole purpose of controlling the 2011 redistricting process.  The first effects of REDMAP gerrymandering were seen in 2012 when Republicans were able to win control of the House by a 33-seat margin, despite the fact that Democrats received over 1 million more votes for the House than Republicans.  An example of Republicans gerrymandering to benefit Republicans was illustrated in the 2016 ground-breaking case Gill v. Whitford, where a panel of three federal judges ruled that the Wisconsin Legislature’s 2011 redrawing of State Assembly districts to favor Republicans was an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. 

This was the first time a Federal Court said it was unconstitutional for a political party to draw electoral districts that favored their own political party, and disadvantaged its political opponents.  Although Republicans gerrymandering to benefit Republicans is unconstitutional it is not an act of vote fraud, it is, however, a wrongful manipulation of the election process and unfortunately, Republicans are not the only political party guilty of manipulating the American election process. 

Democrats are just as guilty of partisan gerrymandering as Republicans which was illustrated in the Benisek v Lamone partisan gerrymandering case, where 4th U.S. Circuit Court Judge Paul Niemeyer who authored the decision by the panel of three federal judges, wrote that Maryland Democrats are guilty of “bringing about the single greatest alteration of voter makeup in any district in the Nation following the 2010 census.” 

Partisan gerrymandering is where similarities between Republicans and Democrats end when it comes to the American electoral process.  Fearing the demographic changes taking place in America, Republicans moved on from committing partisan gerrymandering to committing outright vote fraud, vote theft, and vote tyranny. 

The most egregious case of Republican vote fraud and vote theft is currently playing out in North Carolina.  Where the State Board of Elections has decided to delay certifying that Republican Mark Harris defeated Democrat Dan McCready in the state’s 9th Congressional District, because of “claims of irregularities and fraudulent activities.” 

Three examples of the irregularities and vote fraud activity were: 1) More than 40 percent of the ballots requested by African Americans and more than 60 percent of those requested by American Indians, did not make it back to elections officials because of possible theft.  For white voters, that figure was just 17 percent.  2) A third party collecting absentee ballots is illegal.  A woman, Emma Shipman, stated in a sworn affidavit that she was visited by a person who claimed to be a government official gathering absentee ballots.  Shipman filled out the ballot while the woman waited outside.  According to Shipman the woman “took the ballot and put it in an envelope and never sealed it (another illegal act) or asked me to sign it.  Then she left.”  3) Typically, there are a wide variety of witnesses who sign absentee ballots because the witnesses are usually relatives or close friends of the absentee voter, but in the case of Bladen County absentee ballots, there is a small group of people who individually signed more than 40 absentee ballots. 

All 3 of these vote fraud and vote theft examples are tied to two North Carolina counties and one Republican operative named Leslie McCrae Dowless, who was hired by Republican Congressional candidate Mark Harris.  But Republican vote fraud and vote theft started before this 2018 Congressional race, it dates back to the 2016 presidential election. 

Terri Lynn Rote, a 55-year-old registered Republican Des Moines, Iowa resident, was arrested in 2016 for attempting to vote twice for Donald Trump.  Rote claimed she did so because she thought her first vote would be changed to a vote for Hillary Clinton, saying “the polls are rigged.”  Phillip Cook Jr., a 62-year-old Richmond, Texas resident who claimed he worked for Donald Trump was also arrested in 2016 for trying to vote twice, Cook claimed he was attempting to test the polling location’s security.  These were 2 of the only 4 cases of documented voter fraud that occurred in the 2016 election.  3 of the 4 cases were clear acts of Republican vote fraud and the 4th occurred in a non-partisan Mayoral race. 

Republican subversion of democracy in 2016 didn’t stop with election vote fraud.  In that same year, the North Carolina Republican-controlled state legislature started to legislate vote tyranny , an anti-democracy practice that seeks to deny voters the campaign promises of policy they voted for.  By 2018 this tyranny spread to both the State of Wisconsin and the State of Michigan.  In 2016 after North Carolina elected a Democrat as Governor, outgoing Republican Gov. Pat McCrory called a special session of the legislature.  This special session was called so that the Republican-controlled state legislature could pass a series of vote tyranny bills.  The tyranny bills stripped Gov. Elect Roy Cooper’s ability to make key cabinet appointments without the legislature’s approval.  They also drastically cut the size of Cooper’s administration and changed the Board of Elections so that Republicans would control it in election years. 

Now in Wisconsin and Michigan, 2 states where citizens also voted for Democrats as their state’s top leaders.  Democracy and the democratic election process, where voters pick their leadership and the policies they want to see implemented are being undermined and prevented from happening by Republicans.  Republicans who obviously don’t believe that the outcome of democratic elections have consequences.  Republicans in both these states still control the state legislatures because of partisan gerrymandering not because of the true will of the electorate. 

In Wisconsin the Republican-controlled legislature passed vote tyranny legislation that would prevent Democrat Gov. Elect Tony Evers from enacting welfare, health care, and economic development policies that he campaigned on implementing, meaning his election victory was a mandate from voters to put those policies in place.  They also passed legislation to strip the Democrat Attorney General-Elect of the power to withdraw Wisconsin from a federal lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act, a campaign pledge the Attorney General-Elect made to voters that he would carry out. 

Wisconsin’s Republican state House Speaker Rep. Robin Vos justified passing tyranny legislation because otherwise, he said, “we are going to have a very liberal governor who is going to enact policies that are in direct contrast to what many of us believe in.”  In other words, we Republicans shall ignore the will of Wisconsin citizens and the fact that a majority of them voted for this “very liberal governor”, so he could, in fact, enact the very policies he campaigned on.  Let us replace the decision of Wisconsin voters with our own Republican partisan political agenda. 

In Michigan, for the first time in 30 years, voters elected Democrats and their policy initiatives to the top 3 leadership positions in the state.  The gerrymandered Republican-controlled state legislature reacted by passing vote tyranny legislation.  It stripped oversight power of Michigan’s campaign finance law away from the Democrat Secretary of State Elect.  They also passed vote tyranny legislation that strips power from the Democrat Attorney General-Elect, who campaigned pledging that she might not defend laws like the 2015 law that allows Michigan faith-based adoption agencies to decline to work with same-sex couples. 

Now after years of Republicans sounding the false alarm of non-existent vote fraud, proof of real vote fraud and real vote theft has emerged.  Ironically these true guilty acts of vote fraud, vote theft, and vote tyranny are being committed by Republicans themselves.  It’s as if all these past years that Republicans were making false accusations of non-existent vote fraud, they were predicting their own future fraudulent behavior.  Let’s all pray that Republicans can conquer their fear of demographic change.  Hopefully, they will stop their guilty acts of vote fraud, vote theft, and vote tyranny before Republican desperation escalates Republican vote fraud, Republican vote theft, and Republican vote tyranny into Republican vote hacking!!!