OPINION: The sloppy 2020 election fueled distrust about the results

The past weeks have been jam-packed and I think Americans must be reeling from incident and information overload. I know I am.

Unfortunately, many of us just turn “it” off when that happens. But now more than ever, we need to be vigilant. I refer to crazy political stunts. As I write, today it was Kamala Harris attacking Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for not returning her phone calls. Now keep in mind, this is a busy governor who has weathered many hurricanes. He has his ducks in a row. He has already been in contact with President Joe Biden, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and every other government agency he needs assistance from. He does not have time to play politics with a presidential candidate. It’s not about you, Kamala!

Along with the crazy politics, we have these poor, stranded people in North Carolina who are without food, water, homes or shelter of any kind. Some have lost loved ones and many won’t know the fate of those lost for weeks or maybe even months to come. Now we have Hurricane Milton slamming into Florida exactly two weeks to the day after Hurricane Helene. I have kids living in Jacksonville and a son deployed by the U.S. Forest Service helping in North Carolina. Their safety and the lives of so many others are on my mind and in my prayers.

Amidst that concern, we hear that FEMA is broke. This is concerning as FEMA’s strained manpower has been tasked with the housing of illegal immigrants. They have spent roughly $1.4 billion to complete this task since the fall of 2022. And now, after Harris vowed to ensure victims of Helene that they would at least get a $750 loan for emergency essentials, reports are emerging of only half that amount being made available because of FEMA’s dire financial state.

Its hard to get excited about helping illegal immigrants when just this week El Salvadorian gang members, released into this country by the Biden/Harris administration, beat and robbed an elderly woman in her Dallas home. Adding insult to injury, one of these gang members had already been arrested and released after coming to the U.S., only to commit this horrendous crime against a U.S. citizen. When does the insanity stop?

What I really intended to write about today was election fraud. I am sick to death about the 2020 election. It’s over. All that matters is that it doesn’t happen again.

Why do some Republicans claim the election was stolen? Because Democrats can’t prove it wasn’t any more than Republicans can prove it was. But why were these elections suspect? Let’s examine the evidence.

Directly after the 2020 election, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, saying these states had exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to justify ignoring federal and state election laws and unlawfully enacting last-minute changes. Paxton claimed this skewed the results of the election. In other words, the secretaries of state do not have the right to make or change law. Only the state legislatures in these states had the right to do what these states did. These states were battleground states and many believe it made a difference in the final outcome.

In the last few weeks, I have seen numerous news stories that some states have now discovered they have loads of registered illegal aliens. I refer you to Oregon where apparently when you get a driver’s license, you get registered to vote. It seems that in Oregon you don’t have to be a citizen to get a state-issued driver’s license. Oregon says it registered more than 1,259 ineligible voters in error. That can swing an election.

North Carolina election officials have removed nearly 750,000 ineligible registrants since the start of 2023. That’s an average of more than 1,200 voter records removed from the voter list every day during the last 20 months. I’m guessing they have never done a purge in that state. There are numerous other states with similar results of which I don’t have room here to enumerate. I can only surmise that if the claims of election fraud did anything that was good, it is that states across the country have been directed to get their houses in order. I hope they all have, because this kind of sloppiness leaves millions of Americans unable to trust the outcome of an election. It is why many insist the 2020 election was stolen.

Since 2020, at least 29 states have enacted bills to update and expand voter registration. Even Idaho, under the guidance of Rep. Brandon Mitchell, R-Moscow, passed legislation streamlining and protecting voter registration.

Here’s hoping for a fair, decisive and honest election, one that we can all trust. Get out and do your civic duty, and vote.

Agidius represented Latah and Benewah counties in the Idaho House. She lives in Moscow.