Archived Opinion

We are Americans first

We are Americans first

Diann Catlin • Guest Columnist | Every American should want and demand evidence as to the integrity of the recent 2020 election. Every American should be able to trust the integrity of a record that their own vote actually counted. If there is any way a foreign adversary or a homegrown activist manipulated any pathway so that the will of American people voting their choice is erased and outvoted by dead people or compromising machinery, every American should want to see the proof.

Our nation was founded on laws not a cheating or a self- serving agenda. Our forefathers considered how to make elections fair and untainted. They provided even, well thought out representation from various sized states. They provided three branches of our government assuring checks and balances and a division of labor for the people of America. They looked into the future anticipating the “what ifs,” giving certain powers to the states and certain powers to the representatives. 

All the time they prayed for guidance, for who indeed could think of every scenario that might compromise the integrity of this new nation they had fought so hard to establish?

They foresaw a need to stay independent from foreign interference. They also foresaw an educated people and an unbiased media who would provide further checks and balances of research and reported truth. And yet herein lies the problem today. We do not have an educated and engaged electorate, and we certainly do not have an unbiased, fact-producing press. We have instead too many people who have picked their team and want a win without competing according to the rules. 

If Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg influenced our election by paying and training poll workers to adjust ballots, both he and said workers should go to jail. If write-in ballots were miraculously sent in by folks impersonating dead folks, those impersonators should go to jail. And if foreign countries aligned with certain voting machine companies augmented or erased the real will of the people, they too should pay the penalty. Moreover, we the people must know and want this proof now.

Why? Because we are the people our forefathers considered and valued while they wrote with nearly perfect foresight. Why? Because we ought to care far more for the integrity of future elections, over which “team” we voted for in 2020. Yes we do all bleed the same and today we must want the courts to examine the evidence of voter fraud diligently and completely because we are first Americans! And as Americans we should value honest voting practices over our own corrupt selfish agendas.

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We must insist that any voter fraud be exposed and tirelessly abolished. If we don’t do this now we will never believe again that as Americans each authentic vote cast will indeed count! 

(Diann Catlin is a retired Etiquette Consultant and magazine editor who lives in Highlands. Her book Whatever Happened to Nice? was published in 2010.) 

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