Big Lie about election fraud goes much deeper than just Johnson County Sheriff Hayden
In less than two weeks, voters in Kansas and Missouri will head to the polls to cast ballots in this year’s primary elections. Some have already cast early ballots, or absentee ballots.
Those votes should be cast freely, without fear they will be miscounted, or the outcomes tainted by fraud. Let us state it plainly: There is no evidence of significant voter irregularities in either state, or anywhere in America. Any claims to the contrary are false and extraordinarily toxic.
You wouldn’t know that, of course, if you pay any attention to some politicians and candidates. We called on Johnson County Sheriff Calvin Hayden to resign after he endorsed the Big Lie: that somehow, Kansas votes were stolen, or voting machines compromised, in 2020.
He’s claimed an “active investigation” into voting machine fraud in Johnson County. Actual crimes, one supposes, go uninvestigated.
Hayden’s egregious conduct disqualifies him from public office. But he is only the tip of a very large iceberg of misinformation about our voting processes — an obstacle that threatens our elections, and the democratic process itself.
We know we’re in trouble when Republican candidates routinely refuse to say Joe Biden is the elected president of the United States. Yet in our candidate interviews this summer, and in candidate debates and forums, politician after politician refused to admit the obvious.
The Big Lie is everywhere.
Rep. Vicky Hartzler, a U.S. Senate candidate in Missouri, has said “we’ll never know” who won in 2020. Sorry, Congresswoman. We know.
Eric Greitens, also a Senate candidate, traveled to Arizona last year to watch an audit that confirmed the truth: Biden won that state. His Senate opponent, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, joined a lawsuit challenging the results in Pennsylvania, and has denounced the Jan. 6 committee in Washington.
In Kansas, Mike Brown — a candidate in the GOP primary for secretary of state — has criticized Republican incumbent Scott Schwab, alleging irregularities in the 2020 vote. “The 2020 election still has me questioning the integrity and accuracy of our election process,” a Brown campaign video says. “Questions that have yet to be answered.”
Monday, Ken Cuccinelli, head of the so-called Election Transparency Initiative, endorsed Brown’s candidacy. He called the former Johnson County commissioner a “champion of election integrity.”
It is, of course, ridiculous. No one has yet provided any evidence of widespread miscounted or miscast votes in Kansas two years ago. To claim otherwise defies facts, and logic: Why would Democrats rig the presidential vote in Kansas, which went for Donald Trump by 15 points? And, while they were at it, why didn’t they rig the Senate election, or House elections, or defeat Republicans running for state legislative seats?
Claims of a stolen election always wilt under the slightest scrutiny. Yet that hasn’t stopped large numbers of people believing the Big Lie, or politicians pandering to that belief.
It’s extraordinarily damaging. Candidates now claim that voters want election reform because they doubt the integrity of the ballot box — a doubt encouraged by candidates themselves. The ghastly result? It can be harder to register, and harder to vote.
Which is, of course, the point. Those who push the Big Lie want to discourage voting because they feel entitled to office, with or without voters’ approval. It’s that simple.
There is only one way to fight this nonsense. Voters must reject baseless scare tactics and cast their ballots on Aug. 2, or sooner if possible. Then they must vote again in November.
That’s the only way to protect democracy, which is the foundation of all we do as Americans.