The Republican and Democratic parties are bracing for the 5 January Georgia runoff races that will determine which party controls the Senate. Despite losing several House seats in the 2020 elections, the Dems are still holding the lower chamber and hope that their nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, will assume the Oval Office in January 2021.
The margin between the Republican and Democratic Senate candidates in Georgia is razor-thin, adding to partisan tensions simmering around the political battle.
Dems' Long-Term Election Strategy
Citing voter fraud allegations voiced by the Donald Trump campaign, Republican voters are expressing concerns that the Democrats could "cheat" to come out on top. Georgia GOP officials have already warned the Democratic Party's supporters against moving to the state with the sole aim to vote in two US Senate runoffs in order to upset the Republicans' applecart after the idea started to make the rounds on Twitter.
Earlier, Republican Senate candidates David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler called upon Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to resign over what they called "the mismanagement and lack of transparency" during the November elections and raised the alarm over potentially illegal mail-in and absentee voting. However, the Democratic Party has doubled down on urging Georgians to request mail ballots for the 5 January runoff elections, which is much in the vein of the strategy the party has vigorously pursued during the 2020 race.
Ahead of Election Day, Democrats and their surrogates filed hundreds of lawsuits all over the country, seeking to get rid of security protocols and measures put in place by states to prevent fraud in the use of absentee and mail-in ballots, Hans von Spakovsky, American attorney and a former member of the Federal Election Commission, revealed to Fox News' Mark Levine in a 7 November interview. In addition to that, the Dems tried to postpone the election deadlines and legitimise ballot harvesting under the pretext of the COVID pandemic, he pointed out.
The attorney suggested that this strategy had not been caused by coronavirus being part of the Democratic Party's long-term plan since the very beginning. All of the measures that were asked for in those lawsuits to "basically get rid of the safety protocols for absentee ballots" were embedded in H.R.1 For the People Act of 2019 introduced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi two years ago, the former member of the Federal Election Commission emphasised. "They wanted to change federal law to micro-manage and take over the running of elections by the states and do it in a very bad way", von Spakovsky said. Although the Democratic-controlled House passed the H.R.1 bill on 8 March 2019, the Republican Senate majority blocked the legislation, which prompted their political opponents to try to pass these provisions at the state level.
Why are Dems Loosening Election Rules?
Hans von Spakovsky's concerns are justified, believes Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, an American economist and former assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy under President Ronald Reagan, saying that the Dems managed to adopt new election measures in a number of states.
"Democrats achieved what he says in various the states, and in some states, such as Pennsylvania, rulings of elected officials at variance with state law, were used to permit vote fraud in the last election," Dr. Roberts says.
Furthermore, in some cases Democratic governors and secretaries of state exceeded their authority to enact new election rules. On 12 November a Pennsylvania court ruled that the Democratic secretary of state "lacked statutory authority" to extend the deadline for counting votes "for which proof of identification of the voter was not provided." Likewise, on 13 November, a California State Superior Court ruled that Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom had abused his authority by issuing an executive order that required vote-by-mail ballots to be sent to all registered voters.
California has long been known for loosening election restrictions. Thus, in 2016 the California Legislature and Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown de facto "legalised" ballot harvesting, allowing a third party to collect ballots and deliver them to polling places, nullifying the ballot protection law which stated that only a family member could return another voter's ballot.
Besides this, "Democrats have long wanted to make it possible for illegal aliens to vote", Roberts notes.
"In some states, such as Nevada I believe, all that is needed to vote is an ID, and a person can get an ID without being a citizen", he says. "In the 3 November election in Nevada, people were allowed to vote without an ID and were instructed after voting to go to the Division of Motor Vehicles and get an ID."
Earlier, CNN and Los Angeles Daily News shed light on the Democratic Party's effort to allow non-citizens to vote, at least in local elections. Through these efforts, the Democratic Party is apparently trying to enhance its voting base and gain a competitive advantage over the Republicans, some observers believe. In 2014 Jesse Richman and David Earnest, fellows of Old Dominion University, suggested in their study that non-citizens cast votes in US elections despite legal bans and that they usually favour Democratic candidates over Republican ones. The research alleged that non-citizens participation could affect "the outcome of close races".
H.R. 1 Bill: DC Statehood & Supreme Court's "Ethic Code"
However, there is more to the Democratic Party's H.R.1 For the People Act of 2019, than meets the eye, according to Dr Roberts. Besides "expanding voting rights" through loosening voting restrictions the bill also called for the traditionally left-leaning District of Columbia's statehood arguing that its population is "larger than that of Vermont or Wyoming". While it is not the first time that the issue has been debated, the Republican Party strongly opposes the move.
"DC statehood is a way of boosting Democrat representation in the House and Senate," the former Reagan administration official explains.
As FiveThirtyEight, a US politics and opinion poll analysis website, elaborated last year the Dems are seeking to grant statehood to Washington DC and, possibly, Puerto Rico, in order to add four more seats in the Senate. Given that new senators would most likely be of a Democratic leaning they would upend Republican majority in the upper chamber and solidify the Dems' leadership there, the website alleged. For its part, Vox did not rule out that DC will likely become a state if the Democratic Party takes both the White House and Senate, given that the House of Representatives already endorsed the initiative last summer.
In addition to maintaining control in the US Congress the Democrat-sponsored H.R.1 bill also proposed to establish the so-called "rules of ethics" binding on the Supreme Court. Chief Justice of the US John Glover Roberts earlier argued that the Supreme Court and the rest of the federal judiciary are based "on independence from political influence" and that Congress does not have the constitutional authority to impose conduct rules on the Supreme Court. However, the Democrats are not only willing to maintain a sort of "ethic" control over justices but also revive President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "court-packing" bill to add four more "liberal justices" on the board. Once gaining leverage over the Supreme Court the Dems would be able to get away with whatever they want, Dr Roberts warns.
"The so-called 'rules of ethics binding on the Supreme Court' are a way of neutering the court and eliminating constitutional restraints on the existence of a 'one-party' government that cannot be held accountable," he believes.
The US Establishment's One-Party Rule
If the Democratic Party maintained control over the White House, the US Congress and the Supreme Court at once, it would have unparalleled powers akin to a "one-party system", admits Charles Ortel, a Wall Street analyst and investigative journalist.
In fact, this reality has been taking shape for quite a while, apparently originating in the late 1980s, when "unregulated globalism took root to the detriment of the national government", according to him.
"Long ago, left-wing 'radicals' cloaked as 'Democrats' secured key positions in politics, in government bureaucracies, in academia, in media, in business and in finance," he says. "These radicals, who once preached that all ideas should be considered, are now certain that only their own inspired views should be adopted, evidence be damned, and that dissent must be crushed."
For nearly three decades the US has been ruled by the same dynastic political families and their associates, the Wall Street analyst notes, referring to close connections between the Clinton and Obama administrations as well as the Bush cabinet, whose Republican alumni teamed up with the Democrats against Donald Trump during the 2019/2020 election cycle.
This political establishment is now seeking to return to power under the potential Biden administration although their domestic economic and foreign policies were all but successful, according to the analyst.
"Starting under the Clinton administration, corruption in America has grown to gargantuan proportions," he says. "Ever since outsider Donald Trump won his first election, those who profit from 'The Art of the Steal' (trading donations for political rewards) have been trying to cancel Trump and his army of 'deplorables'. And these anti Trump forces bend all rules they cannot break, and break as many rules as they can get away with."
"Few understand, even among Democrats, that the Democrat Party is no longer just a political party," echoes Dr Roberts. "It is an ideological revolutionary party that intends to overthrow 'white culture'. Not even the elite financiers of the Democrats have caught on that once the Democrats have one-party rule they no longer need the billionaires. I don’t think the CIA and the military/security complex have figured it out either."