There’s much to be cautiously optimistic about down this homestretch of the campaign season, with President Trump’s poll numbers widening almost by the day now over Kamala Harris, whose manufactured honeymoon period now appears to be in the distant past. As such, just eight weeks out from November 5th, it’s due time to shift our collective focus to the integrity of the electoral process itself. The mantra by the Trump campaign all year long has naturally been “too big to rig” – in other words, flood the ballots with so many Trump voters as to overcome even 2020 levels of fraud. That said, however, there are some troublesome developments that Democrats will double and triple down with backdoor methods of electioneering. These lawfare efforts on the Democrats’ part, abetted by radical lawyers like Marc Elias, Andrew Weismann, and Norm Eisen, should be expected to worsen in the weeks ahead as they see any poll leads they once had evaporated in thin air.
Of these methods, the most readily identifiable concern is the integrity of the voter rolls, and the high prospect – now with at least 7.2 million illegals having flooded the country over just the past four years (an extremely conservative estimate, by the way, that discounts the potentially millions of more so-called ‘gotaways,’ undetected by border patrol) that ineligible voters might appear on these rolls in key battleground states.
Of particular concern is battleground states with Democratic Governors – a list that includes Pennsylvania (Gov. Josh Shapiro), arguably the most important (hence, ‘keystone’) state this cycle with its 19 electoral votes (EVs), Arizona (Gov. Katie Hobbs – 11 EVs), Wisconsin (Gov. Tony Evers – 10 EVs), Michigan (Gov. Gretchen Whitmer – 15 EVs), and North Carolina (Gov. Roy Cooper – 16 EVs).
The logic to this is straightforward: even if just 1%, heck .01% of those 7.2 million illegals appeared on voter rolls, that would amount to 72,000 unlawful voters. In 2020, President Trump “lost” Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona, totaling 37 electoral votes, by a measly 42,918 votes, according to CNN’s tracker. A reversal of just those four states – totaling fewer than 43,000 votes – would have gotten the 45th President to 269 electoral votes, and hence an effective victory. Add in Nevada, which he allegedly “lost” by a little over 33,000 votes, a total of 76,000 or so votes, and the President would have won the race outright. Thus, going by the most conservative number of ineligible voters – a one-hundredth of a percentage point of the 7.2 million illegals who have crossed the border during the Biden-Harris administration – would have tipped the scales in a close presidential election.
The voter roll concern is not a conspiracy, but basic mathematics. Indeed, it is reasonable to think that if potentially millions of illegals evaded government agents at the border, why would they not similarly evade detection on state voter rolls, where the amount of scrutiny is far less rigorous than at the border? Common sense dictates that they would.
Of course, liberal mainstream news outfits, like the New York Times, caught wind of the heightened scrutiny conservative activists and the RNC have rightly placed on the voter roll issue in recent days. They have begun the spin and gaslighting song-and-dance charade. These are actual words from a recent Times piece: “This surge of activity is raising a range of concerns among voting rights advocates and lawyers. The Republican activists’ discussions carried echoes of Jim Crow-era practices that kept Black and Latino voters from the polls.”
Really? Echoes Jim Crow-era practices that kept “Black and Latino voters from the polls”? But perhaps even more absurd is a statement made further down in that very same article, where the writer admits that illegal aliens – i.e., noncitizens – are unable to vote, under federal law. The unspoken premise of the article is that federal law is racist or immoral for preventing non-citizens from voting. But arguably no right is more linked to citizenship than is the right to vote, the two are so deeply entwined that it’s difficult to conceive of how the concept of national sovereignty, and by extension the country, would be without it.
But the gaslighting gets worse. Salon repeated the outright racist trope that “many Americans don’t have [proof of citizenship documents] readily available,” something that is immediately discredited upon looking at the nearest highway teeming with thousands of drivers of all racial backgrounds in the course of mass transit. If it is not too difficult to receive a driver’s license (a stance Leftists presumably might soon argue), as proof of the millions of cars on the roadways would demonstrate –– it surely is not too difficult to have a driver’s license or passport, to vote. Amusingly, the Salon article links to a study perpetuating once more the racist and discredited myth that black and Hispanic Americans are disproportionately harmed by voter ID laws, even though that could not be further from the truth, as debunked in academic study after study.
President Trump declared on his Truth Social platform this past week that “[a]n interview by Tucker Carlson of an election expert indicates that 20% of the Mail-In Ballots in Pennsylvania are fraudulent.” He ended his post with a ringing call to action: “THE RNC MUST ACTIVE, NOW!!!” The urgency expressed in the President’s Truth Social post echoes his campaign pledge, also reaffirmed this week on Truth Social, to “[s]ecure our elections, including same day voting, voter identification, paper ballots, and proof of citizenship.” The importance of Voter ID, a staple of the President’s 2024 campaign platform, cannot be overstated: free and fair elections are integral to an orderly democratic process. There is no other way. If the right to vote, a pillar of constitutional government is allowed to be opened to the world, all hell will break loose. Our country will cease to exist soon enough – as no country in history has ever abdicated its commitment to national sovereignty and survived. America, exceptional though it is, is no exception to that rule.
The integrity of the election process goes much deeper than illegal aliens potentially voting and corrupting the results of a free and fair process – but the issue is important for several reasons. First, it shines a light on systematic fraud generally affecting our electoral procedures – fraud that doubtlessly goes to other categories, beyond just illegal alien voters, including the possibility of deceased voters, out-of-state residents, minors, felons, and other classes of unlawful voters appearing on voter rolls. Second, it helps focus national attention on problems that demand investigation and an offensive legal strategy, not just one that reflexively counters legal developments spearheaded by the left’s lawfare brain trust.
The RNC, for example, would be well-advised to devote legal resources to demand Democratic Governors in battleground states, starting with Josh Shapiro, to disclose his voter rolls to the public immediately. This way, the RNC will better be able to conduct a comprehensive audit of the system, resolving any issues beforehand. This would hopefully ensure that only legal voters are being tabulated – as part of its broader strategy to count as many votes before November 5th as possible. Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia County above all, has a longstanding reputation of being the most fraudulent precinct in the country. Thus, it’s absolutely imperative for the RNC to double down on election integrity efforts targeting Philadelphia and nearby counties aggressively and systematically. That is the best way to avoid a 2020-type repeat.
As an aside, now that Congress is back in session, an election integrity committee should be commissioned to investigate potential fraud and oversee the presidential electoral process, particularly as early voting begins in several states this month. One proposal that might be included as part of this committee’s more general strategy is to pass legislation protecting private citizens from questioning or probing the legitimacy of the electoral process. As has become sadly commonplace over the past four years, private individuals should not be pummeled into bankruptcy with crippling defamation lawsuits systematically targeting those who simply raise awareness on these issues. The examples of Rudy Giuliani, Tina Peters, Jim Hoft, Mike Lindell, organizations like Fox News and the Gateway Pundit, and countless others had their First Amendment rights, particularly as private individuals, denied to them in the cruelest of ways – their livelihoods destroyed – for innocuously exercising their rights.
The right to speak freely is unassailable. This remains true for anyone, so long as we live under a constitutional form of government, which we still (unbelievably!) do. But it remains particularly true for private individuals, who should be allowed to speak freely about a political process unencumbered by the threat of a lawsuit, or personal, financial, or professional retaliation – above all from the government. As elections are a federal issue, it only underscores the importance of safeguarding a private individual’s right to speak freely about them, for it is a political process first and foremost, and political speech is protected speech under the First Amendment. If we cannot preserve that most sacred liberty, simply put, our society will have abandoned any claim it has to freedom and democracy.
Thus, Congress must act now to pass legislation fortifying the individual’s right to speak freely about electioneering processes, without the threat of legal or political retaliation by bad-faith actors who have forfeited their oaths to uphold the Constitution: mankind’s last, best hope against the temptations of government overreach – and the corruption therewith that necessarily flows from unchecked power.
Paul Ingrassia is an Attorney; Communications Director of the NCLU; a two-time Claremont Fellow, and is on the Board of Advisors of the New York Young Republican Club and the Italian American Civil Rights League. He writes a widely read Substack that is regularly posted on Truth Social by President Trump. Follow him on X @PaulIngrassia, Substack, Truth Social, Instagram, and Rumble.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.