Reader responds to recent letter in SDN

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To the editor:

Normally I am not vocal about politics because I learned that those willing to talk about their political beliefs were usually not open to other views. On January 15 this paper published a letter by Matt Clayton which contained truths about our indifference and laziness in getting involved in political matters, however his basic premise that the election was stolen is false, and it was an attack on our democracy and specifically on the judiciary.

As a judge for 18 years who ran as an independent in 2002, I spent a large part of my life making decisions that affected the lives of many people. I was careful to base every decision on findings of facts and conclusions of law. If I was wrong the aggrieved party could appeal to a higher court.

As a retired judge I was interested in finding out if there was WIDESPREAD fraud in the November 3 election. I have read and heard many statements and opinions of people who saw or heard nothing. I was also concerned by the constitutional questions raised.

Every election has a few illegal ballots that are counted. Some absentee ballots are completed by someone other than the voter and some people cast absentee ballots for deceased persons. Most of these and other fraudulent ballots are easily detected by an audit of registered voters.

If, as Mr. Clayton alleges that the evidence of voter fraud was overwhelming, then why was it not produced in any of the court cases filed by the President’s supporters? Lawyers know what legal evidence is and would have offered legal evidence of WIDESPREAD fraud if they had it. Many of the false claims were easily refuted. All of the cases were dismissed for lack of evidence. The only positive ruling was to allow election observers to move closer to the vote counters.

Some cases involved state constitutional questions which were not brought to the attention of the courts until after the election process had started. The courts found that the people voted under the laws that existed at the time they cast their ballot. (A law is presumed to be constitutional until overturned by a court or repealed by the legislature.)

Most of the “overwhelming” election fraud was disproved by the Georgia Republican Secretary of State, Brad Rathensperger. All of Georgia’s ballots were counted by machine, by hand and then recounted and audited, and the difference from the first tally and the final tally was negligible. Other than two ballots cast by deceased voters there was no other fraud. Similar findings were made by every state.

We should be applauding the fact that citizens registered and voted in record numbers.

Norman Smith

Sidney

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