Ever since Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, he has baselessly claimed the results in states he lost were “rigged.” His demonstrably false claims led to the Jan. 6 insurrection and 62 failed lawsuits that attempted to overturn the election in his favor.
Post election, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) declared the 2020 election “the most secure in American history.” Shortly thereafter, Trump fired the head of CISA; a man he had previously appointed.
Trump had plenty of help in trying to overturn a fair election and one of his helpers, Utah’s Mike Lee, pledged to work “14 hours a day” to subvert the election in favor of the man he once called “our Captain Moroni.”
Six years of rhetoric about “rigged elections” has hatched various Republican plans to take “rigging” into their own hands. Trump wants to “nationalize” elections in blue states even though the U.S. Constitution mandates that states, not (Trump’s) federal government, run elections.
Additionally, Mike Lee has co-authored the grandiose sounding SAVE American Act. Lee’s bill is supposedly a safeguard against noncitizens voting in elections, even though that has rarely, if ever, happened. In actuality, the bill is an attempt to disenfranchise the poor, the elderly, the disabled, people of color and even women from voting.
Is it a coincidence that a majority of the would-be disenfranchised groups tend to vote for Democrats? I think not. It’s time for those who falsely believe previous elections were “rigged” to see who is actually working to rig elections, beginning with the 2026 mid-terms. It’s time for Utahns to see Mike Lee as the “unconstitutional scholar” he really is.
Rob Greene, Salt Lake City