So was the 2020 election stolen or not?

The answer to this question is wildly important.

Hi Friend.

When it comes to figuring out whether or not the election was stolen, the story tells itself, I submit. In many ways, it’s as simple as beginning at the beginning and ending at the end. But before we do that, I will remind you of two things: 1) I do not believe the election was stolen, and 2) you should not take my word for it. Check my work, do your own research, come up with your own conclusions.

Here is why I do not believe the election was stolen.

1. Stealing an election is hard

Stealing an election in 2020 would have been hard and hard to hide. Take the state of Wisconsin, for example. Joe Biden won Wisconsin by more than 20,000 votes. To successfully pass off that many fraudulent votes would require every county clerk, municipal clerk, the clerks' staff, the entire staff of the Wisconsin Election Commission, staff members at several state and federal agencies, as well as the USPS, to fail to notice a problem or, even less likely, to agree to look the other way. This is the problem with these sorts of conspiracy theories. To do what President Trump and his ilk have accused the Democrats of doing would require the active participation of a vast number of American citizens (Democrat and Republican) in multiples states, all of whom would have to conspire, stay organized, and keep quiet. I don't know about you, but this seems unlikely to me.

2. The courts have spoken

The Trump campaign went to court more than 60 times to challenge voting results and procedures. They lost every case but one. For grittier detail than I can provide here, see the report from the Campaign Legal Center (CLC), a nonpartisan organization founded in 2002 by Trevor Potter, a Republican former Commissioner of the Federal Election Commission.

More illuminating, still, are the lawsuits that have been decided against those who claimed the election was stolen. Fox News, for instance, relentlessly linked Dominion voting machines to allegations of a rigged election. But Dominion, apparently unwilling to be used in the stolen election scheme, sued Fox for defamation and won - to the tune of three-quarters of a billion dollars. Let that number soak in. (Fox, of course, could have taken the case to trial, but chose not to.)

Relatedly, Rudy Giuliani was ordered to pay $148 million to Wandrea “Shaye” Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, two former Georgia election workers he accused of misconduct. A jury awarded them $148 million in damages. (Frank Braun an investigator with the Georgia Secretary of State at the time, said during the trial that "There was no evidence that suggested they did anything wrong, except show up to work and work hard.) It seems important to point out here that the stolen election allegations are not without heartbreaking collateral damage. These particular allegations, which were proved false, upended the lives of both Ms. Moss and Ms. Freeman. For months the two women were subjected to graphic and terrifying death threats. After the verdict, Freeman told reporters, “Money will never solve all my problems. I can never move back into the house that I call home. I will always have to be careful about where I go and who I choose to share my name with. I miss my home. I miss my neighbors and I miss my name.” For his part, Giuliani said that "the absurdity of the number merely underscores the absurdity of the entire proceeding. It will be reversed so quickly it will make your head spin."

The case has not been reversed. (In April, Giuliani lost his bid to dismiss.)

3. No congressional investigation

What could be more important to the American public and their representatives than a free and fair election? What could be more important than a full account of voter fraud if there was a real and substantiated concern?

And yet.

House Republicans never convened a special committee to investigate the 2020 election. They could have done so in a very public way. They could have (and absolutely should have, if they honestly suspected election fraud) summoned and grilled witnesses, issued a report, and made criminal referrals to the Justice Department. Perhaps it is true, as Liz Cheney has said, that many Republicans in Congress don't believe the election was stolen after all. Terrifying thought. (Not for nothing, Congress has also dropped the idea of impeaching Biden - "the world's most incompetent & corrupt President," according to Trump. Why? They don't have the votes to impeach. Why don't they? Lack of evidence. Sigh.)

4. And finally, Data Analytics Expert and former Trump Campaign Consultant Ken Block puts the nail in the coffin

Ken Block, whom the Trump campaign hired in 2020 to find voter fraud in the election, wrote an op-ed in January of this year stating unequivocally that the 2020 presidential election was not stolen and that there was "no evidence of voter fraud sufficient to change the outcome of the election." Block went on to write, "My company’s contract with the campaign obligated us to deliver evidence of voter fraud that could be defended in a court of law. The small amount of voter fraud I found was bipartisan, with about as many Republicans casting duplicate votes as Democrats."

For these reasons, I do not believe the election was stolen. For these reasons, I am horrified by the fact that former President Trump, along with many of his closest advisors and, surprisingly and depressingly, most Republicans in Congress, continue to peddle this fallacy. A fallacy that tears at the fabric of our (fragile and imperfect) democracy. Worse yet, not only have these bad actors been peddling a lie for four long and exhausting years, they actively tried to change the outcome of a legitimate U.S. election.

Friend, it does not get more serious than this.

How is it that so many well-meaning folks believe the election was stolen? Because, I think, people they trust keep telling them that it was. With unfailing fervor, no less.

Very quickly, before I wrap up, someone wrote recently to remind me that Hillary Clinton also claimed the election was stolen from her in 2016, and I remember that Jimmy Carter too, said Trump was an "illegitimate President" because Russia had helped get him elected. These comments were inappropriate, in my estimation, and dangerous in that they too chipped away at our collective confidence in elections. Words matter. That said, a sweeping congressional report found that Russian interference was/is a real and present danger, but that there was "no evidence that vote tallies were altered or voter registry files were deleted or modified ... though Russian government affiliated cyber actors conducted an unprecedented level of activity against state election infrastructure in the run up to the 2016 US elections." The difference, of course, is that Clinton and Carter did not whip up half the electorate in a years-long effort to change the outcome of a legitimate election. Their comments were premature and, ultimately (arguably), wrong, but they were not criminal. (Assuming it is indeed criminal to try to steal an election. The verdict is out. It is not illegal to lie about election outcome, but the Justice Department argues that, in conjunction with his continued falsehoods, Trump's efforts to get Vice President Pence, state officials, and state legislators to change the election outcome make for an illegal conspiracy. Thanks to the recent Supreme Court decision, however, we wont be getting a verdict any time soon.)

Lying about an election, pressuring good people to lie on your behalf so you can effectively do that which you accuse the other side of doing - steal an election - is as grave a threat to our democracy as we have seen in our lifetime.

Friend, I know the Trump administration promises to deliver many of the changes you would like to see in a conservative administration. But at what cost?

As you know, I am a political bridge-builder. But as I've said before, I find myself wondering—mostly in the middle of the night—how much we bridgebuilders can do in this post-truth America. Living in different realities is a very, very dangerous proposition. How dangerous? “Post-truth,” according to historian Timothy Snyder, “is pre-fascism.”

Again:

“The post-truth playbook goes like this: attack the truth-tellers, lie about anything and everything, manufacture disinformation, encourage distrust and polarization, create confusion and cynicism, then claim that the truth is available only from the leader himself. The goal is not merely to get people to believe in a particular false claim but to so demoralize them with a tsunami of falsehoods that they begin to give up the idea that truth can be known at all...”

But here’s the thing, friend: if we care about Truth, the rule of law, and American Democracy, we cannot afford to be demoralized. Neither can we afford to be apolitical.

The upcoming election is of profound consequence. We must all be political now.

Love,

Sara