Letter to the Editor - Stolen election?

Editor,

Was the election “a fraud”? Were 61 courts, including Trump’s packed U.S. supreme court, wrong? What evidence was presented under oath in court?

2016: Trump lost the popular vote by 2.9 million votes.

65,853,625 votes, 48.0 percent Clinton

62,985,106 votes, 45.9 percent Trump

The 2016 election hinged on approximately 78,000 votes from only three counties in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Those few votes flipped the Electoral College.

2020: Biden’s 51.3 percent of the popular vote was part of the highest voter turnout since 1900 where the two main tickets each received over 74 million votes. Biden received over 81 million votes, the most votes cast — ever — for a presidential candidate. Biden’s electoral college win was identical to the Trump’s margin in 2016. Biden carried 509 counties, Trump carried 2,547.

It’s plausible that a leader who lied over 30,000 times in his 1,460 day presidency — 19.17 lies per day on average — exhausted 6 million additional voters to turn out to turn him out. The eight-minute murder of George Floyd and Trumps reactions did not help, nor Trump’s narrow focus on re-election ignoring and mis-managing a global pandemic. “You have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.”

The U.S. is at a global record 520,000 COVID-19-related deaths as I write this.

It’s plausible even a Very Stable Genius could predict the inevitability of loss.

What happened pre- and post-2020 election? Paraphrasing Wyoming Republican Liz Cheney: Trump gathered cordwood by lying and incensing for months, invited a crowd to assemble, riled them, lit a match to ignite.

All to keep power, position and influence. Shakespearean. The election was not stolen or a fraud. The only attempted theft and fraud ironically issued from the claimant — Donald J. Trump.

Let’s be honest, acknowledge it — and move on.

Jeff Ball

Bozeman