[ANALYSIS and OPINION]
CBS News is reporting that a person has been charged with tampering with voting equipment. They report that he was a former member of the Green Party and is now a Democrat.
Everyone, including the person who the subject of CBS’s report, is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Having said this, everyone regardless of party affiliation should loudly condemn any tampering with voting equipment. Any sort of voting related misdeed must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Sentences (for those who are caught and lawfully convicted by a court of competent jurisdiction) should be very stiff—stiff enough to send a loud and clear message that anyone, regardless of party, who does anything that impedes free, fair and credible elections will suffer serious consequences for a long time. This includes incarceration for lengthy periods.
The guess here (and is only a guess) is that the accused might well have been worried, given the events of January 6th 2020 and, the statements of some of its candidates for high office and a host of other things, that militant right-wingers were going to play fast and loose with the elections, So, to even the playing field (so to speak) or out of a sense of panic that our democracy would be imperiled by the election of a Republican majority to Congress, he might have acted in what he thought was the country’s best interests.
Who knows? But the foregoing is possible.
But this is the kind of stuff that happens once either party or its followers get in the habit of making statements or doing things that are contrary to open, free and fair elections and/or which displays a willingness to ignore voting results—a la January 6th etc. This is what happens, when any party’s candidates do not expressly agree to accept election results. This is what happens when one party has supporters who turn up armed to watch other folks vote.
If the allegations against him are true, does the accused, not understand that his actions only help justify further misdeeds by militant right-wingers? Not that it does justify further misdeeds, because it doesn’t. But that’s the spin right wingers will put on his actions—namely, “ see, those Democrats do cheat!” Then the snowball effect of one misdeed begets other misdeeds by the other side starts. And there never seems to be an end. Democracy cannot survive a constant questioning of the legitimacy of elections. This type of crime by anyone cannot be tolerated ever—but especially now.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. Regardless, of the motivation, the accused, if found guilty should suffer a very stiff sentence.
David Dixon Lentz November 4, 2022
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