There was no widespread fraud in our last election. There weren’t millions of illegally cast votes. The election was not rigged. There is no evidence to prove any of these claims, only lies, speculation and conspiracy theories. The votes that Donald Trump was seeking to throw out were legitimate votes, and the objections to their being counted were primarily technical (arrived too late, shouldn’t have been able to use a drop box, state courts had no right to change voting laws, etc.)

The mistrust in the outcome of the election is the result of a lie, a big lie, perpetrated by the Trump and amplified by news media and Republican allies. And now, to make matters worse, the suspicions created by that lie are spawning hundreds of efforts across the country by Republican-led state legislatures to make voting more difficult in the future, all in the name of safeguarding elections that don’t require safeguarding.

In rare candid moments, some Republicans, including the ex-president, make it known that their true concern is that Republicans can’t win elections if they make it easier for more Americans to vote, that their only path to victory is by suppressing as many Democratic-leaning voters as they possibly can.

In other words, to maintain power by rigging our elections without regard for the untold numbers of voters they are trying to disenfranchise. Our democracy does badly need election reform, but reform that expands voting access and opportunity, not that restricts it.

Doug Zlatin
Falmouth