Last Updated on November 28, 2023 by BVN
S.E. Williams
If we’ve learned nothing else during the age of Trump, we’ve learned that the illusion of voter fraud runs deep among many remaining in the Republican Party to the point that it supersedes almost everything else on their agenda including truth, justice, fairness, legality, integrity, even threats to human life.
Despite this illusion, in what’s been defined as an “exhaustive piece of reporting by the Associated Press” found fewer tha 475 cases of potential voter fraud out of 25 million votes cast nationally in the 2020 Presidential Election and yet, the Big Lie–though waning in intensity–persists.
And nowhere is the issue of voter fraud sputtering along more inappropriately than here in Riverside County. And now it appears, where Republican District Attorney Mike Hestrin once beat the drum on this issue, Riverside has a new “voter fraud drum major” in the guise of Sheriff Chad Bianco–who is himself under investigation.
Amid claims of election fraud ahead of the November 2020 election, Hestrin and Riverside County Supervisor Karen Spiegel allegedly pressured the Registrar of Voters to remove a ballot dropbox that had been available to voters for over 20 years, threatening to sue if she didn’t. The registrar argues that their request was intended to suppress voters.
Hestrin also purportedly pushed the county’s Registrar of Voters to place undercover agents at polling places and capture the license plates of those delivering ballots to drop off locations during the 2020 election cycle among other antics.
In fairness to Bianco, I guess he is just following the political playbook on voter fraud while he also deflects from the investigation into his own department by the California Attorney General’s office.
“It is important to protect the integrity of our elections. But we must be careful not to undermine free and fair access to the ballot in the name of preventing phantom voter fraud.”
Brennan Center for Justice
Not unlike the cast of fervent believers or manipulative misfits (however you choose to define them) banging the drum for Trump and proclaiming voter fraud in the wake of the 2020 Presidential election, there are many die-hard believers here in the inland region and many of them hold elected offices.
So, it appears that Hestrin passed the mantle to Bianco though it is still unclear beyond politically correct statements quoted in other outlets as to what exactly is driving Bianco’s investigation beyond overused and trite Trump era phrases like wanting to—restore the public’s faith in elections.
Bianco claims to have clear justification for the investigation declaring to the Press Enterprise, “When witnesses or victims come forward with claims of criminal conduct, the Sheriff’s Office investigates those claims.” Certainly, as citizens, we expect nothing less. The question, however, is whether the reports are credible or just political gamesmanship by those in his party who are holding tight to the New Lost Cause of voter fraud.
Another clear example of the pervasive New Lost Cause mindset here in Riverside County is the push to have the Board of Supervisors discontinue use of the Dominion electronic voting machines much maligned by the Republican Party, despite the fact that in mid-April, Fox News reached a near $800 million dollar civil settlement to avoid a lawsuit over the lies it perpetrated against Dominion machines.
Certainly, time will tell whether there is organized and pervasive voter fraud being perpetrated here in Riverside County or if Bianco will turn up a small number of easily explainable errors that can occur on occasion without malice or forethought and then proceed to use those for some type of political leverage. Doing the math on the Associated Press findings you arrive at a fraud rate of .0019% at the national level. Based on such odds it is hard to see whether Bianco will find anything of substance. But, of course, we can never say never.
Regardless of the outcome, we know the game because we’ve seen it play out nationally and we know the caliber of characters involved in perpetuating the myth.
In the final analysis, it almost doesn’t matter— because we know it’s never been about protecting votes… it’s all about finding ways to suppress the vote… including gutting the Voting Rights Act. Gerrymandering the redistricting maps, reducing days, hours and locations of early voting, photo ID laws and the list goes on… .
At some point the naysayers will just have to face reality–the BIPOC numbers are too great and getting greater….the New Lost Cause is already lost.
Republicans are running out of options to cheat their way into power… I think they might earn more votes if they faced reality and just spent time serving the people rather than conniving with ways to deprive voters their right to choose representatives who will be reflective of their community and represent their needs and aspirations.
What are they afraid of?
Of course, this is just my opinion. I’m keeping it real.