Richard Mawrey QC

Trump’s right, the US election could easily be rigged

In the furore over Trump’s bid to fill the vacant Supreme Court slot, commentators have pointed out that his nominee’s first job may be to rule on the validity of the election result. Is that likely to happen? As the judge in the election court that exposed serious voter fraud during the 2004 Birmingham council elections and in several other election cases involving fraud, I think I may be able to go some way in answering that question.

Fear over a disputed election stems from President Trump’s claim that postal voting is vulnerable to widespread fraud — committed, one need hardly say, by the Democrats. The Democrats have naturally reacted with horror and outrage, denying that they would ever dream of such a thing (being bound to win anyway). But they have gone further and asserted that such fraud is not only unthinkable but impossible. This stance has been adopted by the liberal media — but it is clearly wrong. Fraud is eminently feasible. Whether it will actually occur is another matter, but it is far from impossible.

All systems of postal voting on demand (rather than for reasons such as absence from the country) are wide open to potential fraud. Procedures can be tightened and safeguards introduced. And though they can make fraud more difficult, they can never fully eliminate postal vote manipulation.

None of this is to say that fraud will happen, only that it can happen and happen easily

The system for electing the president, much revered by Americans as handed down from the founding fathers, is incomprehensible to most outside the country and has never been imitated. The idea of electing a president by universal adult suffrage in a two-man contest by a method which can, and often does, see the election of someone who receives a minority of the popular vote, can only be made to appear democratic by great sophistry.

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