A recent editorial by the Akron Beacon Journal:
Some of us are really tired of reliving 2020.
We can’t forget that COVID was declared a pandemic in March of that year.
It was also a presidential election year with Democrat Joe Biden ultimately facing off against incumbent Donald Trump, a Republican.
Biden won. (Yes, we believe the many hard-working election officials who tallied the votes and reported them back in 2020.)
… Even Ohio’s secretary of state, the usually level-headed Frank LaRose, is making us relive 2020.
He wrote on Twitter Feb. 3: “The alleged voter fraud uncovered by my office and referred for prosecution this week is ONLY THE BEGINNING. This is one of MANY investigations.”
According to a Beacon Journal report, 42 ballots were illegally cast and counted in the 2020 presidential election in Ohio. The cases represent 0.0007% of the 5.9 million ballots cast.
LaRose’s tweet referred to the 27 newly uncovered cases of potential voter fraud from 2020 that he sent to the Ohio attorney general or county law enforcement earlier this month.
This small number of cases hardly suggests the “rigged” or “stolen” election that sore loser Trump complained about prior to the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol.
Yet, LaRose’s tweets get worse. He says: “It’s an even bigger problem in other states where laws & leaders are weak. President Trump is right to say voter fraud is a serious problem. More to come.”
More to come? Oh, no.
It’s wrong for LaRose to sling mud at other states.
Election administrators take their jobs seriously, noted Jessica Jones Capparell of the League of Women Voters of the United States, who spoke during a virtual forum offered by the Akron Roundtable on Thursday. She said there have been very few cases of voter fraud nationally.
The larger problem is that too many states are trying to make it harder for people to vote.
… It seems to us that LaRose is making unnecessary promises in the hopes of attracting voters on the right who believe Trump’s lies about widespread fraud. LaRose faces a primary challenge from former state lawmaker John Adams, who has expressed doubts that Biden won.
Is LaRose eager for a Trump endorsement and the attention that would gain?
If so, that’s a sad commentary on the state of the Republican Party.
LaRose should be able to run, in part, on the strength of how elections are run. A 0.0007% fraud rate sounds pretty darned good.
… When will we be done arguing about things that have been clear since 2020?
— Akron Beacon Journal, February 20
