0611blog

The Insidious Fraud Claims

Enough of trump’s phony claims of voter fraud, Liberia had the real mother of all voter fraud after Charles Dunbar Burgess King was elected president in 1927, picking up 234,000 votes. the only thing was the country had only 15,000 registered voters at the time. It didn’t work out well, in the long run, as King served as the 17th President of Liberia from 1920 until 1930 when he resigned because of scandal involving slave labor.

Trump’s phony, unsubstantiated and discredited claims of voter fraud haven’t gotten him back in the cat seat at the White House, yet, but the lies have gotten so much traction that Republican states around the nation are enacting new voting restrictions that will make it more difficult for many, many people, who happen to be predominantly Democrats, to fulfill their constitutionally-guaranteed right to vote. The deceit has been a rousing and insidious success.

Republicans lawmakers have decided that it would be too difficult to really rig coming elections so they’ve taken the easy way by enacting new laws that will simply keep the opposition away from the polls. Many of the new wave of restrictive voting laws zero in on limiting mail-in voting, stricter photo ID laws, fewer polling places and less early voting, all which would disproportionately affect African Americans who voted heavily for President Joe Biden.

Amid the GOP push for more restrictions, some states have pushed back with new laws to make it easier to vote, including expanding early voting, making mail voting easier, improving accessibility for voters with disabilities and allowing people with criminal convictions to vote. The Democratic-sponsored “For the People Act,” passed the House but chances are slim for Senate approval for the bill which would block many state restrictions.

Let’s see how claims of voter fraud were used by other despots, tyrants, fascists and dictators around the world in past times.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler was named chancellor and then voters approved new laws giving him absolute rule. In the Reichstag, the German parliament, non-Nazi members were threatened if they didn’t support Hitler’s decree.

In another historical hotbed of corruption, the Romanian Communist Party won the majority of seats in parliament as the communists claimed they won 80 percent of the votes, although critics said the number was more like 48 percent and that the election was rife with intimidation and electoral chicanery.

Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos ruled from 1965 to 1986, as he silenced the media, imprisoned critics and violently intimidated voters. In 1986, Corazon Aquino gained more than 700,000 votes but the nation’s Commission on Election called the election for Marcos.

Slodoban Milosevic ran the nation of Serbia and later the Republic of Yugoslavia from 1989 to 2000 but in 1999 he became the first sitting head of state to be charged with war crimes, in connection with the Bosnian genocide committed by Bosnian Serbs. Apart from the war crimes allegations, Milosevic resigned in September 2000, and was arrested on suspicion of corruption, abuse of power, and embezzlement. Convicted of war crimes, he died in prison in 2006.

Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, ran up against Kizza Besigye in the 2006 election but unfortunately for Besigye, he was arrested on charges of treason, leaving Museveni as the last man standing and victor along with his party. Along the way to re-election, Museveni was hit by charges of intimidating, arresting and detaining opposition leaders.

In the 2007 general election in Kenya, Kibaki was elected despite those pesky opinion polls that showed his opponent, Rauila Odinga, had a strong lead. Kibaki was quickly sworn in, followed by violence that left more than 1,300 people dead and 600,000 displaced.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was elected president of Turkey in 2014 and 2018, even though Erdogan’s campaigns were accused of planning an election fraud, using state resources for the election, incorrect voter data, media bias and intimidation. A $100 billion corruption scandal in 2013 led to the arrests of Erdoğan’s close allies and incriminated Erdoğan.