When Election Cheating Is Tolerated, Democracy Becomes Oligarchy

Spencer Pratt is just the latest example of an all too familiar pattern. In this pattern, the more conservative candidate will have a promising lead on election day, but then, the voting tabulations run for days, if not weeks. The conservative candidate watches his or her lead slowly slip away as mail-in ballots trickle in until somehow just enough votes fall in favor of the progressive candidate. Only then do they call the election and it is over.

Consider Pratt’s circumstances and it becomes more suspect. On May 29—days before the Los Angeles mayoral primary—Pratt led both Mayor Karen Bass and Nithya Raman in the polls. Following the election night, Bass was ahead at 35%, with Pratt—who only needed to come in second to make it to the general election—in second at 29%. Raman was a distant third at 23%. It looked as if Pratt had made it to the general election. Raman even conceded.

But wait! The mail-in ballots were still trickling in. Raman, who was third place in election day voting and early voting by a wide margin, somehow outpaced not just Pratt, but Bass, too, on every ballot drop after election day. She finally “caught” Pratt five days later and the election was promptly called and no more ballots were counted from that point. 

It defies belief that Raman somehow not only strongly outpaced Pratt in the late mail-in ballot totals, but also Bass—but not so much that Raman overtook her overall, of course. Considering that Raman and Bass presumably draw from the same voter base of minority progressive women—and that Bass is the incumbent—the probability of this outcome is extraordinarily small.

But this seems to be the status quo whenever a Republican has a lead and Democrats push for continued counting of votes. Consider President Donald Trump in 2020, who held a lead in key states on election night and proceeded to lose each of them as more ballots arrived and were counted in the following days.

Look even further back, such at the 2008 recount involving Al Franken (D) and Norm Coleman (R). Even after a full tabulation of votes and Coleman was declared the victor, somehow Franken caught up and overtook him to become Minnesota’s Senator. 

It is hard to argue that this is not a pattern. If there was not foul play, certainly sometimes this pattern would be broken. But, in some way or another, when elections are close, the Democratic candidate will somehow gain the necessary votes when counting continues. It is almost as guaranteed as death and taxes. 

If this is the case, one must wonder: are we leaving the realm of democracy and entering into the realm of oligarchy? This question may seem melodramatic, but consider the definition of oligarchy: “government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes.” That definition sure seems to be what we are experiencing. 

Even if one were to conclude that this is fair play, the appearance of impropriety must at least be acknowledged. There are too many ways to cheat when—in varying jurisdictions—IDs are not required to vote, when mail-in ballots are sent out en masse, when ballot curing is permitted, when votes continue to be counted days or weeks after an election, when ballots are permitted to be dropped off after election day, etc. Even if the conclusions drawn are but mere conspiracy theories, these holes in the system give those theories oxygen. 

Something has to give if we are to restore confidence in our elections. We cannot continue to kick the can and hope that things improve (they won’t). There needs to be some urgency and a desire to diverge from the safe path that leads to destruction. America—once the world’s beacon for democracy—cannot fall. But if we continue to sit on our hands, it might.