I wrote yesterday that if you need someone to blame, blame me. Don’t blame bogeymen.
Yes, vote fraud is real. Voter rolls in most states need to be cleaned up. Voter intimidation should be harshly prosecuted.
You can sign up at True the Vote or Missouri Precinct Project to take effective, useful action. These organizations do vital work, and they both need more volunteers.
Using vote fraud, however, as an excuse for secession or for blocking the Electoral College vote is neither effective nor useful. In fact, it makes us sound like the idiots the left wants us to be.
Please knock it off.
Try Critical Thinking Instead of Knee-Jerk Emotions #
I read a piece American Thinker that made me want to jump out a window. Selwyn Duke tries making the case that Romney lost because of voter fraud.
His case is weak.
I won’t bother with his points about anecdotal evidence, since they’re anecdotal. They can’t be proven one way or the other.
Instead, I looked at the numbers.
Romney Got No Votes In Some Philadelphia Divisions #
True, this is odd. It may will be that Romney votes were thrown out. But there are two problems with blaming Pennsylvania’s outcome on this anomaly.
1. We’re talking about a predominantly or exclusively Democrat area. Had Obama received less than 98 percent of the vote, something would have been wrong. So we’re talking about, at most, a 2 percent problem in a small area.
2. The total vote in these Philly division was less than 20,000 votes. Suppose that 2 percent intended to vote for Romney. That’s 400 votes. It doesn’t change the results. It doesn’t even come close.
Military Overseas Ballot Requests Way Down #
Duke also cites a drop in _requests _for absentee ballots by armed forces serving over seas. He points a report that in Virginia and Ohio, requests for military absentee ballots were down by 70 percent:
Frankly, it is inconceivable that military interest in voting could’ve dropped so drastically given conservatives' passion this election season.
There are several problems with Duke’s argument.
1. Over 83,000 troops came home. [Thirty percent fewer troops are serving overseas](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AonYZs4MzlZbdFRFYjhsS1hyT0txMzlnV0Y0S2hqQ2c#gid=0)in 2012 compared to 2008. And a LOT of them are stationed in Virginia.
2. The drop in requests was for the entire election cycle, not just the November 8 election. Obama was unopposed in the primaries.
3. The drop is in _requests_. The DoD can’t make people request an absentee ballot. (I was the Voting Rights Officer on USS Woodrow Wilson—it’s not always easy to get people to vote.)
I agree that the DoD did a poor job getting ballots to troops. But the problems were with ballots that had already been requested. Let’s wait to see how many military ballots were cast before we lose our heads.
Secession and Disrupting the Electoral College Doesn’t Help Conservatism #
If you believe the election was stolen, I get why you want to take extreme measures. But your extreme measures don’t win any hearts and minds. They make us look nuts.
Read Erick Erickson’s blog about rolling up the welcome mat at RedState. Clearly, I’m not the only one noticing the crazy talk around here.
Our mission is to win-over people who want what we want:
* A strong economy
* A smaller, fiscally responsible government
* A safer world
* A sustainable immigration policy
These are things that almost everyone in America can agree on—everyone except the far left nuts.
Reagan attracted big numbers with 3 of those 4 pillars. Immigration wasn’t as big a deal then, because our population still had some organic growth going on.
Companies and nations fall when they refuse to face the realities of their situations. The conservative movement is supposed to be the embodiment of hard, cold looks at the national condition. Let’s keep it that way, okay?