Trump wants to 'True the Vote'

By Stephen Z. Nemo

In 2008, incumbent Republican Senator Norm Coleman won reelection against his Democratic rival, comedian Al Franken by a slim 725 votes. After an army of Democratic Party lawyers descended on Minnesota to litigate the result, multiple recounts gave Franken the win by 312 votes.

The anti-voter fraud organization Minnesota Majority discovered that 1,099 convicted felons voted for Franken, a violation of state law.

Four years later, 243 Minnesotans were either convicted of voter fraud or were about to stand trial.

With Franken in the Senate, Democrats had the supermajority they needed to pass dictatorial Obamacare.

In April, Virginia’s Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe, an ally of Bill and Hillary Clinton, signed an executive order giving 206,000 Virginia felons the vote, assuring an electoral windfall for Mrs. Clinton in November. 

But standing up for electoral integrity can get you noticed—in a bad way. 

“My life before I spoke out for good government stands in stark contrast to the life I now lead,” said Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of the anti-voter fraud organization True the Vote. 

In her 2014 testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, she said: 

“Shortly after filing IRS forms to establish 501 (c)(3) and 501 (c)(4), an assortment of federal entities including law enforcement agencies and a Congressman from Maryland [Democrat], Elijah Cummings came knocking at my door … my private businesses, my nonprofit organizations, and family have been subjected to more than 15 instances of audit or inquiry by federal agencies.” 

Representative Cummings vehemently denied Engelbrecht’s charge, but subpoenaed emails from former IRS Exempt Organizations Director Lois Lerner showed that he and his staff did ask Lerner to give True the Vote extra special attention. 

Lerner, like Clinton, never faced charges for mishandling sensitive information. Although ethics charges were filed against Cummings for “weaponizing government” on behalf of his party, nothing ever came of them. 

At a campaign rally in Columbus, Ohio, Trump told supporters, “I’m afraid the election’s going to be rigged, I have to be honest.” He told a crowd in Pennsylvania that the only way Hillary could beat him in the Keystone State is “if in certain sections of the state they cheat.” 

So, under the heading “Help Me Stop Crooked Hillary From Rigging This Election!”, the Trump campaign website is actively recruiting poll watchers, a move POLITICO reported as “unprecedented in a presidential election.” 

The Republican National Lawyers Association met in Denver with Trump campaign attorney Donald F. McGahn II. They hope to formulate a rapid-response strategy should evidence of election fraud be found. The group’s chairman, Randy Evens, told the Washington Post, “If you have 7,000 lawyers on the ground, and 200 sophisticated election attorneys on call, you can move quickly. The message was: This ain’t your father’s Cadillac.” 

Trump’s focus on voter fraud is cause for concern at Clinton-supporting MoveOn.org. They urged members to contact their state’s secretary of state to “just say ‘No!’ to Trump’s ‘election observers.’” 

They construe the move as “a blatant attempt to harass voters of color and keep people from exercising their right to vote” and that “our country has come too far to allow Trump to return us to Jim Crow era voter harassment.” 

Democrats—including “voters of color”— did exercise their right to vote in their party’s state primaries. And leaked emails show that Democratic Party officials undermined those votes by rigging the process in favor of Hillary Clinton. 

In light of questions about that process, Republicans are wise to prepare a vigorous defense against the Democratic vote-fraud, if it appears. 

The people at MoveOn forget that the Democratic Party has a poor history on race. 

And just in case the folks at MoveOn were wondering, an ad appearing in a 1960 edition of the Gadsden Times urged white voters to elect Connor “Democratic National Committeeman for Alabama.” The advertisement noted that in doing so, Connor would “take your views to the National Democratic Party.”

Connors won. 

The Democratic Party’s facility for denying or corrupting our cherished civil rights shows the spirit of Bull Connors lives on.