Election Cheating

COACH IS RIGHT!!!

I used to have this coach who told us, “How you do one thing
is how you do everything. You loaf in practice, 
you’re gonna loaf in the game. 
You cheat on your tests, you’re gonna cheat on your wife.”
I’ve found that to be true with golf… the guy who cheats on the course 
is going to cheat in business, or on his taxes or, say, in politics.
Rick Reilly
GOLF.com

Remember Rosie (the non-racer) Ruiz?

Her name often appears when you Google “biggest cheats in sports.” And, not so surprisingly, she serves as a paradigm for what we’re seeing in the closing days of the presidential election in “the world’s longest living democracy.”

Rosie Ruiz’s descent into running infamy began when, after failing to meet the application deadlines, she told NYC Marathon officials she should be allowed to run because she had a brain tumor. Turns out, she apparently caught a subway to close to the finish line, jumped into the race, and then turned herself in at a first aid station as an injured runner.  Volunteers mistakenly listed her as having completed the course with a time of 2:56:29, the eleventh woman overall – and qualified her for Boston. 

Ruiz crossed the Boylston Street finish line at 2:31:56 – a time that would have been the fastest female time in Boston Marathon history and the third fastest female marathon time ever – twenty-five minutes better than her NYC time. Then two Harvard students reported seeing her jump out of the crowd along Commonwealth Avenue. She was also missing from race videos. 

In sports, the “saving grace” of cheating - if there is a saving grace – is “there’s (almost) always next year.” Not so in the now on-going election that will end sometime (perhaps days) after midnight on November 3. 

Not so in presidential elections. Results that will be announced days or weeks after 12:01 Wednesday morning, November 4 won’t simply determine who sits behind the Resolute Desk for the next for years.

They will affect the future of Science and Education and the Environment and Civil Rights and Justice in America for decades to come. As the Americans nationwide are voting early and by mail at the highest rates in history, statistics on COVID-19 pandemic infections rollercoaster through quasi valleys toward higher peaks before the anticipated increases of winter’s cold weather and indoor gatherings. 

At the same time, one presidential candidate consistently encourages social distancing and masking, while another complains “People are tired of COVID” and mocks the nation’s top infectious disease experts – the scientists of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases - as “idiots” and “a disaster.” 

The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals.
The struggles within yourself – the invisible, inevitable 
battles inside of all of us – that’s where it’s at.
Jesse Owens

Ninety-six years after the passage of the Indian Citizen Act, many Native Americans living on reservations continue to be excluded from the democratic process and their right to vote is still challenged by the passage of new laws and practices that either fail to consider, disregard or intentionally target Native American voters – in an effort to keep the ruling party in office. The isolating conditions of reservations, socioeconomic disparities, and lack of access to transportation are just some of the factors that keep Native American turnouts the lowest in the country. 

Perhaps the most insidious is the passage of state laws requiring residential and postal addresses – despite the fact that a lack of permanent housing impacts the ability of tribal members to have a permanent physical address. Many Native American and Alaskan Natives live in communities that lack residential addresses and the U.S. Postal Service does not deliver mail to the majority of reservation residents at their homes. In fact, in North Dakota immediately before the 2018 midterm elections over 5,000 Native Americans – Americans – lacked the requisite form of ID because no reservation had residential addresses. As a result, in North Dakota, Alaska, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico and other states with large Native American populations, the deck is often stacked in favor of politicians and political parties with little or no real interest in or reason to protect the rights of the Native Americans – whose national poverty rate is 26.8%. 

Find the good.
It’s all around you.
Find it, showcase it and
You’ll start believing in it.
Jesse Owens

In the 2018 midterm election in Florida, the landmark constitutional Amendment 4 was adopted with wide-spread voter support and predicted to restore voting right to as many as 1.4 million Floridians. It was expected that between 10% and 20% of felons – between 140,000 and 280,00 – would register to vote in 2020. 

The amendment would have had the greatest impact in counties with higher numbers of Black residents. For example, in Gadsden County, the only county in the state where more than half of the residents are Black, felons would have made up at least one-fifth of new voters. In seven other counties with sizable Black populations felons might have accounted for one in every fifteen new voters. 

However, Florida’s Republican governor and the state’s Republican-dominated legislature quickly tampered down the potential of the ex-felon vote – passing legislation that required proof of the payment of all court-ordered fees and fines before registration - disqualifying near 800,000 felons from voting. This despite the fact that many jurisdictions had such poor records keeping that it remains impossible to determine what ex-felons owe in fines and fees or if those obligations have been discharged. At the start of early voting only 67,000 felons had registered.  

The only bond worth anything between human beings is their humanness.
Jesse Owens

With a population of 4,092,00-plus – 16 percent of the state’s total – Harris County, Texas covers a landmass larger than Rhode Island and, effective October 9, has only one drop-off location for mail-in ballots instead of the twelve that were available during the 2018 midterms. 

Brewster County is the largest in the state - more than three times the size of Delaware and 500 square miles larger than Connecticut. Oh, and according to the 2010 census, has a population of less than 10,000 and only one city – Alpine. It also has only one mail-in ballot deposit box. 

In the face of a pandemic that resulted in nationwide self-quarantines and the possibility of the state turning from red to blue – or at least purple – Texas’s Republican Gov. Greg Abbott moved to rein in efforts to encourage mail-in balloting and limited every county to one drop-off box.

In the end, it’s extra effort that separates 
a winner from second place. But winning takes a lot more
than that, too. It starts with complete command of the 
fundamentals. Then it takes desire, determination,
discipline and self-sacrifice. And finally it takes
a great deal of love, fairness and respect for your fellow man.
Put all these together, and even if you don’t win,
how can you lose?
Jesse Owens

Three states away, Republic party operatives installed unauthorized ballot drop-off boxes incorrectly (dishonestly ?) marked “official” and lacking the anti-tampering protections required by California statute. Republicans claimed the boxes were an attempt to stop suppression of the GOP vote, despite the absence of required anti-tampering protections.

We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come 
into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination,
dedication self-discipline and effort.
Jesse Owens

Nationwide, minority neighborhoods are experiencing voter suppression – targeted emails, text messages and phone calls dishonestly and frighteningly telling Black and immigrant voters that requesting absentee ballots can result in their information being turned over to immigration agents, parole and probation officers and debt collectors who might come after them; and governors and state legislators limiting the numbers of early voting days and eliminating “souls to polls” Sundays.

Across the country governors, legislators and judges are making decisions based on political interests and, too often, designed to deprive citizens of their right to vote and have their vote count.

America is living through a vote the History may well prove to be the most momentous in the 160 years since Lincoln’s first election. Indeed, it may be the most significant in the nation’s history. 

Teach your youngsters, who are the future hope of America,
the importance of love, respect, dedication, self-sacrifice,
self-discipline and good attitude.
That’s the road up the ladder to the championships.
Jesse Owens

Twenty-two year old Jesse Owens became one of the great American heroes of the Twentieth Century by capturing four gold medals – 100 meters, long jump, 200 meters, and 4x100 meter relay – in the 1936 Olympic Games – a record that held for 48 years - and “single-handedly crushing Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy,” although he was not afforded the honor of an invitation to the White House to shake hands with President Roosevelt, who never even sent a congratulatory telegram. Having often suffered racism-induced poverty through much of his post-Olympics life – “For a time, at least, I was the most famous person in the entire world,” on his death Owens was saluted by President Jimmy Carter: “Perhaps no other athlete better symbolized the human struggle against tyranny, poverty and racial bigotry.” 

Vote-suppressing emails sent by Iranian operatives pretending to be the they-have-no-reason-to-be Proud Boys ‘cause’ they’re cowards, threatening – “We are in possession of all your information…You will vote for Trump on Election Day or we will come after you….” – is not football trash talk. Even though it’s from Iranian agents, it’s still cheating.

Cancelling postal worker overtime, limiting the scope and actions of the Postal Services own police force, destroying mail processing equipment and deliberately slowing the mail – including the delivery of medications for America’s vets and senior citizens and the delivery of absentee ballots – is not “working the refs.” It’s cheating pure and simple. 

Removing voting machines and limiting voting places in minority neighborhoods and causing Americans to stand in line for six and eight and ten hours isn’t an economic decision. It’s cheating and just as much a threat to the future of America as “spearing” is an unforgiveable foul in football. It’s cheating.

This election is not a made-for-TV wrestling match - all make-up, flashing lights and make-believe. It should not be a game in which cheaters win. 

Men and women of conscience in this election must put aside party sympathies and vote for candidates and parties that – like Jesse Owens – compete with integrity and honor and play by the rules.  

This election is about “the human struggle against tyranny, poverty and racial bigotry.”