Disagreement after Defeat

I agree with Rich Lowry and Ramesh Ponnuru (“Disgrace after Defeat,” December 31, 2020): Trump has been Trumpian, and it will be good to see the White House rid of him. Unfortu­nately, in making their case, they adopt the legacy-media practice of ignoring relevant information that doesn’t support their opinion. Con­sider­ing that the following two articles by Andrew C. McCarthy (“The Courts Hold the Line”) and Dan McLaughlin (“‘It Must Have Been Stolen’”) just pile on more of the same, I would think National Review could find space for a few words underpinning an alternative view.

Joe Biden won Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin (and therefore the presidency) by a margin of 0.39 percent. It would not have taken “widespread fraud,” significant disparities in handling absentee ballots, or unseemly actions by election workers while they were not observed to change the outcome of this election. Ballotpedia claims the ballot-rejection rate for states about which it has information was only 0.88 percent, compared with 1.70 percent in 2016 and despite an enormous increase in mail-in voting. Trump’s charges are therefore plausible, but they lack anything close to the evidentiary requirements of a court.

Lowry and Ponnuru correctly point out that Trump’s claims to be defending election integrity are laughable, given efforts to have states ignore certain laws. They fail to mention the success that Democratic lawyers had getting like-minded judges to do the very same thing prior to Election Day for the benefit of their candidate.

I also agree that the behavior of Democrats after Trump’s win in 2016 is nothing to emulate. Trump has behaved worse in some ways, such as impeding the transition. Yet Lowry and Ponnuru fail to discuss the outgoing Obama administration’s spurring on a sham investigation that seriously undermined the Trump administration for years. Has Trump done anything worse than that?

Perhaps National Review can devote an article in an upcoming issue to what should be done to legitimize elections in the minds of most Americans and not just those who hate Donald Trump.

James Rath Lafayette, Calif.

Richard Lowry & Ramesh Ponnuru respond: Biden’s tipping-point state, where he won the electoral votes needed to keep the presidential race out of the U.S. House, was Wisconsin, which he won by more than 20,000 votes. Accept the strongest claim made by the Trump campaign, that ballot collection at Democracy in the Park events in Dane County broke the law, and Biden still won the state by 3,400 votes. That margin would be fraudulent only if an enormous amount of voter fraud had taken place — much more than the Trump campaign was willing to allege in court. This magazine has long favored election reforms such as voter-identification requirements, but confidence in elections also requires that we dismiss claims of election-deciding fraud that are offered without or counter to evidence.