by Bill Jones, Stevensville
One of the questions persisting about the grumbling flock of local election integrity worry warts is: have they finally realized that they have been led around by their noses and probably their wallets by hucksters? I haven’t heard much about them for some time.
So how about I help them get all wound up in a new pursuit of righting a wrong? This one’s not a nothingburger.
Quite simply, have they heard that the guy who got more votes for the office of U.S. President in 1824 got to watch a guy with considerably fewer votes be sworn in? The Truing the Vote club should have been there, maybe stopping the steal.
Our first wrong Winner Election wore its dunce cap for 52 years. To the chagrin of many, Samuel Tilden in 1876 got to watch Rutherford Hayes be inaugurated while knowing Hayes had lost by over a quarter of a million votes. An enormous margin. Too bad that one didn’t get Trued.
Come 1888, a vote deficit of 89,293 didn’t keep Benjamin Harrison out of the White House. That’s three elections now going to the wrong winner! The fourth came in 2000, and this time the inaugurated man had lost by 537,179 votes! Really. The fifth was a real doozy. The holder of 2,868,518 more votes was not inaugurated. That was in 2016. A great way for a democracy to fill their President requirements!
I’m thinking that something needs Truing. The problem is NOT that sensible people use tabulating machines to count things.