Opinion: The nightmare isn’t over yet.
November 10, 2020
Ding-dong! The witch is dead, ding-dong the wicked witch is dead. These were the words sung by the people in the Wizard of Oz movie after the Wicked Witch of the West was killed freeing them from their fears of her. This attitude is now expressed globally with the defeat of Donald Trump by President-elect Joe Biden. However, is the world celebrating too early, or is the Wicked Witch actually dead?Â
Trump will remain in office until January. Until Biden’s inauguration, an absolute slew of lawsuits is being sent to the courts of multiple different battleground states. In Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia the president is claiming enough voter fraud occurred in those states to not only warrant a recount but also warrant those ballots to be tossed out.Â
There is absolutely no evidence so far to back the claim that widespread voter fraud occurred. Trump also claimed Republican observers were not allowed into polling places to watch the votes and check legitimacy. These claims also have no evidence backing them so far.Â
However, let’s look into the president’s tactic.Â
The goal is to throw enough lawsuits at these states to get one of them to the Supreme Court so the justices (three of them appointed by Trump) can have the chance to disqualify enough ballots for the president to win those states. This desperate attempt will not happen and is incredibly flawed.Â
“It’s sorta disingenuous for the president to say that he will take this to the Supreme Court because he understands that is not how this works,” said David Goldberg, a COD political science professor. “In 2000, when the decision to stop counting ballots was decided by the Supreme Court, it was after it was fought in Florida’s state supreme court and a federal court of appeals in Atlanta. Then it went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court gets to decide what cases they wish to hear, whether they think a case has merit. There is every reason to believe that the court might want to stay out of this because they do not want to politicize the courts even further.”Â
Trump’s gambit to use the Supreme Court to win this election will fail and is failing. His voter fraud cases are being dismissed left and right in the lower courts because they have no evidence to support fraud occurred. Trump’s claim that Republican election observers aren’t at polling places is also being dismissed because they were there. He is just lying because he lost. This is a feeble attempt to not only delegitimize the election process but to inspire millions to action in the name of Trump.Â
Currently, the Wicked Witch isn’t dead, and there is a chance that some of his lawsuits can make it to the Supreme Court. However, it’s only a matter of time before the justice system tosses a bucket of water on all the baseless claims. All anyone can do now is sit and wait while the Wicked Witch slowly melts.
Steve Miller • Nov 13, 2020 at 4:16 pm
Ben, unfortunately CoD and this newspaper do not want to give conservatives a chance. Its pretty obvious since they have yet to post one conservative view point in their paper. CoD is plagued with CRT and will properly decline as it continues to accept views like this one as valid. This is a higher institution, which means you have the responsibility to write with having some basic knowledge of what is going on. Highly doubt this guy has any conservative friends.
adviser • Nov 16, 2020 at 10:59 am
Editor’s note: COD has had a conservative majority on its board of trustees for several years. In short, the ultimate authority at COD is in the hands of a conservative majority. We accept guest columns and letters to the editor. Send them to [email protected]
Jason Whitlock • Nov 12, 2020 at 6:33 pm
Chair of the Federal Election Commission Trey Trainor. You sir are misinformed. The election was fraudulent and that’s not an opinion. The entire article was written on a false premise. Honestly I’m impressed but at the same time this is also a high-level digestion from the common consensus on Twitter.
adviser • Nov 16, 2020 at 11:07 am
Editor’s note: The reference to Trey Trainor in this comment is in regards to poll watchers in Pennsylvania. Here is information on that issue: https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-state/2020/11/09/presidential-election-2020-Trump-Biden-lawsuit-voter-fraud-Pennsylvania-poll-watchers/stories/202011090110
Ben Zink • Nov 10, 2020 at 9:39 pm
You could have said it better David Baur however I do agree with you about some foul play but this is an opinion piece so it definitely will be “biased” to a certain degree. I do agree with what you are saying though. I wish conservatives had a stronger voice in not only at COD.
Magdalen Payne • Nov 10, 2020 at 6:14 pm
If you ask me, the wicked witch of the west is the media. They’re the ones who went about spreading the false news that Biden won….even before all of the votes are finished being counted. Seems like they were a little too trigger happy with their news…just like the newspapers were with Hillary in the previous election….too bad they can’t report some accurate and trustworthy news.
The voter fraud seems to be in the states that carry the biggest deciding factor for this election,, namely Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia… and this is just for the election this year. We already know that states like Illinois are corrupt and rotten from the inside out, with many people receiving mail-in ballots…never mind that they’ve been dead for over 20 years.
Also the point must be made that this crooked scheme that was used for the election this year will not happen again in the future, since they seem to have figured out how to make people into cowards. If you want to vote, you show-up in person to vote on voting day, no more of this voting by mail business that everyone knows is unreliable.
adviser • Nov 11, 2020 at 10:41 am
Editor’s note: State law in Illinois required all registered voters to be mailed applications for mail-in ballots. There are no reports, and no evidence, to show anyone received a mail-in ballot who didn’t request one. There are also multiple and bi-partisan checkpoints that ensure no person can vote more than once and no person who is not registered to vote can vote. Mail-in ballots are the same as absentee ballots and have been used since the Civil War as a trusted and reliable way for members of the military and other citizens serving or living overseas to vote. In that 200-year history there have no recorded instances of widespread voter fraud.
David Baur Jr. • Nov 10, 2020 at 12:15 pm
More fake News and Biased Opinions. Democrats Cheated, Got Caught, and if Democracy Succeeds the Supreme Court will correct. there is only one Party that does not want a fair elections, Criminal Democrats.
adviser • Nov 10, 2020 at 12:17 pm
Editors’s Note: Opinions, by definition, are always biased. That’s what an opinion is. And this is an opinion piece, not a news article. To date, there is also no verified evidence of widespread election fraud in the 2020 election or any previous election in the United States.