FARGO, North Dakota — The “Roughrider State” is home to perhaps the greatest chance of a Republican Senate pick-up as well as one of the best opportunities for voters to reject political corruption.
The latter is why I’m here with Take Back Our Republic's North Dakota Coordinator Elizabeth Bear and “the Badass Grandmas” urging North Dakotans to vote Yes on Measure 1.
But, for all the money spent and doors knocked to persuade voters in countless significant votes across the country, the greatest threat to our democracy is not the results on Tuesday — it’s the American people refusing to accept those outcomes.
In the last two years, only quick work by law enforcement stopped many additional deaths from a racially motivated driver in Charlottesville, a Bernie Sanders supporter at a GOP softball practice, a Trump supporter who allegedly mailed bombs, and the synagogue mass murderer who Hated Trump - for Not Hating Jews. While not yet deadly, the call to confront conservatives at their work, home, and restaurants resulted in many liberal mob confrontations, as well as the reaction of a conservative mob confronting Nancy Pelosi even while her daughter was finishing months with Trump supporters for her HBO movie "Outside the Bubble."
Leading up to elections I am certainly a partisan who wants candidates to win due to my strong ideological positions. I’ll be watching races for governor, the House, and the Senate throughout the nation in the hopes that those who reflect my values will emerge victoriously. I also care deeply about Take Back Our Republic's YES campaign here. We lead in the polls but are below 50 percent, which often results in a NO final result, so we will keep campaigning until the polls close.
As I covered in Newsmax last week, the election could be tight in either the House or the Senate, but not both.
The late surge in early voting by minorities and younger voters could validate CNN and network polls pointing to a bad night for Republicans. However, other polls and a study indicating the GOP early voting actually surged more than Democrats in battleground states at least through October 22 offers the alternate possibility Democrats will need to wait two more years before they can be anything more than a “resistance.”
The “cross-partisan” outreach starts the day after an election is settled — not a compromise of ideals but a realization that we need to figure out how to strengthen the republic and the democratic process given the new people in office.
I hope Measure 1 in North Dakota and other efforts truly do drain the swamps of corruption that has resulted from the billions of dollars feeding the political-industrial complex that trades the good of Americans for the elites.
However, we also need Tuesday's election results accepted. Republicans can be hurt by illegal votes facilitated by vans being driven from one polling place to another, and Democrats can be hurt by voting places moved further from heavily Democratic areas or a Voter ID law not allowing Student IDs or alternatives for Native Americans in reservation areas.
However, the threat to our republic occurs when wild exaggerations on the number of illegal or suppressed votes are spread to pretend they affected the final outcome in many races — when this is rarely the case.
For those who still say Al Gore won and the Supreme Court overruled the people — the fact is the Florida recount was finished after the decision and Bush did win.
For those who still say fraudulent votes from illegal immigrants and others elected President Obama and cost President Trump the popular vote — even if the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants registered to vote (see Old Dominion Study) all showed up and cast votes for both Obama and Hillary Clinton it would not have changed either result.
For those who say President Trump only won because of $100,000 in Russian Facebook ads — our sister 501c-4 already won an FEC decision to stop the Russians from doing that again. Still, there is no way to claim that amount overcame the $1,000,000,000 (billion) spent on behalf of Clinton.
Finally, the Democrats huge money advantage the final month will give them about five more Congressional seats than they would get if money was even — but any Republican who thinks that is unfair should reconsider opposition to any rules on money in politics.
The alternatives to people accepting an elected government — even in a less-than-perfect process — is much worse than the actual results. Whatever the results Tuesday, I will accept them even as Take Back Our republic works for conservative political reform to make the next election more democratic so that the republic that has been improved many times over the centuries continues to survive.
John Pudner is Executive Director of Takeback.org, a non-profit home for Americans seeking true political reform. Our conservative solutions include: stopping illicit foreign money from impacting elections; ending pay-to-play in government contracting; and restoring the Reagan-era federal tax credit for small-dollar political contributions, which will encourage more citizens to become donors and help re-balance the campaign finance system. For more of his reports — Click Here Now.
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