Category Archives: elections

Stop the Steal—Missouri, 1941

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The sordid contemporary events that will forever be a lamentable chapter of American history strongly remind us of a similar lamentable chapter in our own state’s history.

This year is the 80th anniversary of the attempt by majority Democrats to steal the governorship from Republican Forrest Donnell, who had won the governorship by the narrowest margin in state history.  Here is how it went down:

Forrest Donnell, a Sunday-school teacher and lawyer from St. Louis officially defeated one of the pupils in his church class, Lawrence McDaniel, by 3,613 votes. McDaniel was backed by St. Louis Mayor Bernard Dickmann’s political machine that Donnell attacked as a potential successor of the infamous Pendergast Machine of Kansas City, badly weakened because “Boss Tom” had been sent to federal prison for violating tax laws.

Shortly after the election, State Democratic Committee Chairman C. Marion Hulen of Moberly announced the committee would investigate reports of “election irregularities.”  Committeeman Frank H. Lee of Joplin announced he had evidence that McDaniel had actually won by 7,500 votes.

In those days, the Speaker of the House, not the Secretary of State, made the official announcement of winning candidates. The legislature convened on January 8, 1941 but Speaker Morris Osborn made no pronouncements. At a joint session on the tenth, Osborn certified the Democratic candidates for statewide office as winners but refused to certify Donnell.

Traditional inaugural ceremonies on January 13th were cancelled.  Lt. Governor Frank Harris took his oath for a third term in the Missouri Senate, where the Lt. Governor is the chamber President.  The other statewide office holders took their oaths at the Supreme Court.  Donnell refused to be sworn by a Justice of the Peace and, instead, asked the court to order Osborn to declare him the winner. A second lawsuit asked the court to forbid a legislative committee from starting a recount.

Two days later, an angry Stark to a joint legislative session,

Your every thought and every effort should be to prove to the people of this great commonwealth that their faith in democracy is not misplaced, that democracy does and will work in Missouri. Nothing should be done at any time to shake the faith of our people in their democratic form of government. In these perilous times, it is doubly necessary that every public official in the state and in the nation should lean backward in an effort to serve the people strictly according to the constitution and the laws of the land without partisan bias and with only the welfare and the safety of our democratic form of government in mind.

Democrats started a recount anyway.  February was half-gone when the Supreme Court ordered Osborn, under the Constitution, to declare Donnell elected, allowing McDaniel to file a notice contesting the election, triggering a legal recount.  The Joplin Globe editorialized, “Larry McDaniel has at once forfeited the moral support of thousands of Democrats who from the first have been nauseated from the stench from the original office-stealing effort.”

Donnell (left) finally was sworn in on February 26, much to the delight of Lloyd Stark who said he was tired of “living out of a suitcase” while his fellow Democrats tried to overturn the election.

McDaniel’s 226-page contest petition was filed March 4, citing fraud, erroneous tabulations, irregularities, and vote-buying in 56 counties. He claimed that a complete would show that 24,263 votes cast for him were “wrongfully rejected” by election officials and that he was the real winner—by 30,000 votes.  Donnell’s 50,000-word response filed about three weeks later threw McDaniel’s claims back at him claiming problems in 91 counties such as irregular registrations, voting by minors, non-residents, and wards of the government. He claimed he should have an additional 9,000 votes.

The recount started in mid-April and by May had turned into a disaster for McDaniel.  Checked returns from St. Louis City and 81 counties had inflated Donnell’s victory margin by four-thousand votes.  A new joint legislative session was called after McDaniel had arranged for hastily-drawn letters withdrawing his contest. He said he had become convinced that reports by his party leaders and others that there had been massive fraud were “greatly exaggerated” and that he was convinced “beyond question of doubt” that Donnell had been elected. Because the recount was never completed, Donnell’s victory margin remains in our history books and in the official record as 3,613 votes, the second-closest race for governor in state history (Frederick Gardner defeated Henry Lamm by 2,263 votes in 1917).

Forrest Donnell was elected to the U. S. Senate, succeeding Democrat Harry Truman.  He served until 1951 and returned to St. Louis and his law practice. He was the last Republican Governor until Christopher Bond took office in 1973.  Donnell, then 88 years old, attended Bond’s inauguration and took part in the celebration late into the night.  He died in 1980 at the age of 95.

Democrats paid a price for their 1941 shenanigans.  Republicans took control of the House in the 1942 elections by a large margin.

One of the other casualties was St. Louis Mayor Bernard Dickmann who was heavily criticized by winner William Becker for trying to use the election contest of 1941 to establish St. Louis machine control of state government.

A new constitution drafted during Donnell’s term in office took away the power of the Speaker of the House to declare election winners and placed it in the hands of the Secretary of State, the top Missouri elections official, where it resides to this day.

(Photo credit):  Bob Priddy Collection

 

What is a public servant worth?

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The people we elected two months ago to write our laws begin their work at noon today, joining those we elected two years ago.  They are paid $35,915 a year and receive $119 a day per diem. Is that enough?  Knowing that there are those who think they should receive nothing, is there nonetheless a minimum that is appropriate for the burden they shoulder on behalf of all 6.1-million Missourians?

Somebody once told your faithful observer that ministers who think they should be paid more than the average salary of the congregation are not long for that pulpit. That is more likely to work at the church on the corner than at the church on the television.

The latest figures we could find from the Census Bureau says the median household income in Missouri, in 2018 dollars was $53,560.  The per-capita income from 2014-2018, in 2018 dollars, was $29,537.  That means that each adult earned that much. And so did any children, even those asleep in their cribs.

We mention these things because one of the first major challenges to confront the Missouri General Assembly in 2021 will be their salaries and those of others in state government.

Years ago, before the small fire of distrust in politics had been turned into a blowtorch, the legislature established a 21-member Citizens’ Commission on Compensation for Elected Officials to meet every couple of years and study salaries paid to statewide officials, legislators, and judges and recommend any adjustments.  The idea was to lessen voter criticism that lawmakers were feathering their own nests by voting themselves pay increases.

The commission is required to be diverse in makeup.  State law says:

One member must have experience in the field of personnel management, one must represent organized labor; one must represent small business in the state, one must be the chief executive officer of a business doing an average gross annual business in excess of one million dollars; one must represent the health care industry; one must represent agriculture; and two must be over the age of 60 years; two public members appointed by the Governor must be citizens of a third class county (third class counties are small ones) north of the Missouri River, two must be citizens of a third class county south of the Missouri River; one member from each congressional district must be selected at random by the Secretary of State; one member must be a retired judge appointed by the judges of the Supreme Court.

An effort is made to avoid  conflicts of interest.

No state official, no member of the general assembly, no active judge of any court, no employee of the state or any of its institutions, boards, commissions, agencies or other entities, no elected or appointed official or employee of any political subdivision of the state, and no lobbyist as defined by law shall serve as a member of the commission. No parent, spouse, child, or dependent relative of any person ineligible for service on the commission may serve on the commission.

But the commission’s work usually is all for naught for one reason.

The legislature has the power to reject the recommendation.  And it does, time after time, because it fears the folks at home will accuse them of nest-feathering.

The legislature has to reject the recommendations by February 1.  And it’s an all or nothing deal.  Pay hikes have failed for fourteen years not only for legislators but for other elected officials,  because the legislature has rejected every recommendation.

This year’s report, eighteen pages long, does not place a heavy burden on taxpayers. The commission estimates recommended raises for the 197 members of the legislature, all of the state judges, and the six statewide elected officials would cost the state about $200,000 a year, a pittance in a state budget that totals something north of $31-Billion before federal pandemic relief funds were added.

For the people we elected as our State Representatives and State Senators on November 3, the recommendations will mean nothing. They cannot accept pay raises during their current terms in office.  So all 163 members of the House and half of the Senate (17) will not get raises if the recommendations are accepted. For them, the raises will kick in only if they get re-elected.

The commission suggests $37,111 would be fair for legislators, given the responsibilities lawmakers bear year-around, not just during the January-May sessions. The increase amounts to $1,096 for our legislators. That works out to $78.30 a year for the fourteen years since the last raise.

Only eighteen governors have lower salaries than Governor Parson has–$133,821. The commission’s recommendation would give him about $7,000 more.

For those who think government should be run as a business is run, let’s make this a business structure.

Governor Parson is the CEO of MOGOV INC. This is a $35.3 Billion multifaceted company serving people in every county and every town in the state of Missouri and has 197 employees assigned to serve every one of those counties and towns. It has a legal department to make sure the things it does for the people in those counties and towns are fair and proper under the law.  The company has thousands of workers in its central office and branch offices.

Some folks who are not part of the corporation think a lot of those 197 employees are just part-timers. But they’re not.  Those 197 people are at their customers’ beck and call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Their heaviest work period is usually January-May but they’re on duty all the time and they have no job security because their contracts that can be terminated every two or every four years. And on top of that, most of them are forced to leave their jobs after eight years regardless of their level of excellence. Once they go out the door, they can never come back. Ever, no matter how competent they are.

Somebody has come along, however, and says fourteen years is a long time to go without a raise; most of these people have never had one, in fact.  Two-and-a-half percent isn’t much of an increase after all these years.

But they’re afraid to take it because their neighbors might talk. And so they’ll probably say, sometime this month, “That’s nice, but, no, that’s okay, you keep it.”

It is true that most of our 197 legislators have jobs in the real world. Only a few live on the salaries that have been frozen for more than a decade.  But that’s not the issue.

You and I choose these people to represent us in one of the most difficult jobs a person can have. We entrust them to enact the policies that govern our lives from birth (or before) to death (and sometimes after). The way they go about it is often sloppy and ugly and not very dignified. But it’s their job and we expect them to find a way to satisfy enough of us that we’ll renew their contract every few years until we are prohibited by an unfortunate constitutional provision to do so.

How much should we pay the people who run a $35 Billion corporation that touches our lives every hour of every day?

They have not come to us to ask for a raise. People who represent us in this corporate structure think it’s time, after fourteen years, to give them a 2.5% bump. After fourteen years.

But they likely will consider it unseemly to take even a little pay raise when the thousands of employees in the central office and the branch offices are still among the lowest-paid in the country and company finances are shaky. This also isn’t a good time because of the problems caused by a pandemic and its impact on the livelihoods of those they work for in each county and town.

The commission has made a nice gesture.  But our public servants are not likely to accept it. Again.

Someday, if enough of the public that has been encouraged for so long to mistrust the people they elect to serve them discovers most of their mistrust has been misplaced, there will be a little raise.  But probably not this time.

Fear of the Mob

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This will be brief.

The U. S. Senate meets Wednesday to confirm the results of the Electoral College. Many Republican Senators and Representatives are up for re-election in 2022.  We’ve been hearing that some of those people don’t want to antagonize our president and his base by quietly agreeing to the results of the election. He already has threatened to “primary” some Republican office-holders who have repudiated his repeatedly-rejected (by the courts) claims of election fraud.

Those who bow to his intimidation are, in effect, signaling that they fear standing against mob rule, for it is clear that this president is unafraid to promote mob behavior in the streets, on the internet, or even in the front yards of elected officials who dare to stand for the truth.

And when the mob becomes a motivator for political decisions, especially if they are decisions focused on individual political futures, it is a slap in the faces of our founders and endangering the constitutional republic they gave us and for which millions have sacrificed their lives to defend.

This is a time to stand against the mob and against the one who thinks it is an acceptable tool to obtain or retain power.  There is never a time for cowardice. There is always a time for courage.

Wednesday will be one of those times.

(We hope Dr. Crane can resume his normal place on Mondays next week.)

The Staples Lesson

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A lot of time and space is being chewed up in the media—including here—about our president’s desire to dominate the Republican Party after he leaves office.  We’ve heard, read, and seen a number of questions about why the GOP, by and large, refuses to acknowledge that the president lost on November 3.  One answer we have NOT heard suggested was explained in the Missouri Senate during the September veto session of 2002 by Danny Staples.

Senator Staples ran a canoe-rental business in Eminence, in country of Ozark Mountains, National Forests, and Scenic Riverways.  He might have been the greatest storyteller in the history of the Missouri Senate—certainly I never heard anybody better in four decades of statehouse coverage.  Some of his stories were tinged with truth.

When things got pretty testy, Staples often would get up and go off on a long, windy discussion of life in Shannon County’s Horse Hollow, his baseball career, his adventures with his horse Trixie, how he was related (by marriage) to Lady Godiva, defending cockfighting, or the days when he hauled cars from New Orleans to Omaha or something else. When Danny Staples was forced out by term limits, the Senate lost about 80% of its sense of humor.

But getting back to today’s situation in Washington, where it seems all sense of tension-relieving humor left the Capitol long ago.

For those worried about the Republicans in Congress who don’t dare speak even slightly ill of our president, we turn to a story told by Danny Staples in his farewell remarks to the Senate eighteen years ago.  Your reporter had the foresight to turn on his tape recorder to capture many Staples stories and has transcribed most of those recordings. Here’s part of his last speech to the Missouri Senate:

“…This is the greatest place in the world to try to make a living.  Sometimes the food is free.  Sometimes the beverages are free.  But I can tell you now…that I had to come up here two weeks ago on constituent services business and I went over to the Deville Hotel.  There was 18 lobbyists sitting there eating and drinking. And I’m term limited out. They know I can’t ever vote again.  And I set over in the corner, all by myself like an orphan boy at a picnic, bought my own Bud Lite and bought my own steak dinner.”

Danny died seventeen years ago, a little more than seven months after leaving the Senate.

The Deville Hotel has a different name. It no longer is a hangout for lobbyists around a restaurant table because it doesn’t have a restaurant anymore. And the Senate doesn’t have Danny Staples.

Nor does the Senate, or the House, in Washington have anyone who can step in when things get too self-important and tense, and cool things down the way Danny Staples did in the Missouri Senate.  And man-oh-man do they ever need it.

As far as why Republicans in Washington—or even the Republican candidate for the Senate in Georgia—continue to parrot Trumpian hogwash that the election was stolen from him, the answer might become more clear on January 6, 2021.

That’s the day after the two U. S. Senate elections in Georgia.  After that, our president will be considerably weaker because there will be nobody over whom he can threaten harm. Disparaging remarks on Twitter will mean far less because all elections have been decided. The control of the Senate has been determined. While he still might bark loudly, most of his harmful teeth will be gone—for at least two years. And with the passage of time (and the potential for legal difficulties that might mean more than another four-year term), his bite will be even less fearful.

Walking into a room of the powerful when you are in no position to help them or to seriously harm them will be a far different experience for our president from the days when he could walk into a room or into a Tweet before that senate election and hurt somebody.

As of January 6, it might be the president who “sets over in the corner like an orphan boy” because the people he will leave behind in the House and the Senate will have a much reduced reason to deal with him.

As far as being “relevant” within the party or whether a Trump will lead the national GOP: other people will be making a lot of decisions once our president no longer has the cover of his office to protect him and those decisions have the potential to make some decisions for the party regardless of the number of true believers the president now has when he has the power to do something for them. Sooner or later the party might recognize a need to move on and the path might be clearer when there is no sitting president blocking the view.

Regardless, both parties and   both houses of the Congress still badly need somebody such as Danny Staples to tell them to quit taking themselves so seriously that they lose sight of the broad public that believed it was electing them to serve in its interests.

 

 

The New Civil War

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We are giving Doctor Crane the Monday off today because the aftermath of the 2020 Presidential election continues to degenerate to the point that positive words from Dr. Crane seem out of place today.

The U. S. Supreme Court made quick work last Friday of the Texas lawsuit challenging the presidential votes in four key states. One does not have to have a law degree to understand how this latest collapse of national norms is self-contradictory in a large manner and is a violation of the American system of justice in another.  People who should know better are the instigators of two of these attacks.

Missouri’s attorney general is one of eighteen attorneys general who attacked the integrity of elections in those states.

But that’s not Missouri’s only involvement in the last-ditch efforts to overturn the results.

A resolution demanding that six key states prove to the Missouri legislature that their elections were run properly has been assigned to a committee of the Missouri House. It will be up to the outgoing speaker, who did not sign the resolution, to decide whether to spend state money and to recall the full House for a few hours to consider the resolution—-if it gets out of committee.

Many of those who think either of these actions is proper also are those who strongly support states rights.  Yet Missouri is sticking its nose into the elections processes of some of its sister sovereign states, impugning the rights of those states to conduct their elections under their laws and to resolve any questions within those states. These states are under no obligation to prove anything to the Missouri House, which probably would loudly reject any suggested by any of those states that it prove to them that our presidential results were not tainted.

Imagine what backlash these actions could have.

What is to keep Mississippi from challenging Missouri’s gambling laws?  What is to keep the attorney general of California from challenging a Missouri environmental law?  Why should not the attorney general of Minnesota challenge Missouri’s clean water statutes?   Why shouldn’t the attorney general in Arizona assert that suitcases full of pre-marked Trump ballots were spirited into local election officials’ offices and demand Missouri prove the assertion is untrue?

They can’t do that, you say. Yes, they can. The Golden Rule invites them to do so under precedents that now are being set. .

The results of the November 3 election have fueled a new Civil War that seems to say it is okay for one state to take another state to court because the first does not like a law in the second state.

The House resolution flies in the face of the cherished standard of innocent-until-proven-guilty.  It assumes six states are guilty of fraudulent election practices and demands that they prove their innocence.  Has this election so damaged the nation’s intellect that a foundational part of our justice system is invalid—or arbitrarily and selectively invalid, which is even worse?

Maybe we’re missing something here, but it appears this resolution signed by more than sixty members of the House of Representatives has extended their job descriptions to be a judge and a jury that already has passed judgement on other election returns in six other states. Would you, in the normal course of your daily life, think it’s a good idea that one of your neighbors can be a judge and jury pronouncing your guilty of improperly doing the family laundry and demand that you prove you did not?

Guilty, says the jury that is the Missouri House.  Without a trial.  Prove yourself NOT guilty.

Maybe there are reasons within the current political climate and the current administration that are driving these actions. A person who is even minimally aware of the current national political situation could construct some scenarios to explain these things and perhaps someday someone will reveal what has triggered this meddling in other states’ elections.

We would rather see Missouri’s officials paying attention to the problems of Missouri than becoming involved in a new civil war that pits states against states.

Or do we no longer believe in the Pledge of Allegiance’s description of one “indivisible” nation?

 

Poster Child

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Three weeks ago in this space, I argued that we should give our president some slack so he could protest perceived shortcomings in the November 3 election.  But enough is now more than enough. The final straw came last Sunday with his interview with Maria Bartiromo on FOX.

His seemingly unending and increasingly bizarre and wild claims that the election was stolen from him, his efforts to hamper his successor’s transition to the presidency, his ongoing lack of concern about the thousands of his fellow citizens who are falling ill and losing their lives at increasing rates, and his seeming (though perhaps intentional) appearance of ignorance of how elections and the courts work have exceeded the tolerance of many who were willing to give him one final chance to grow up.

I am out of patience.

Quite early in my career as a reporter, I determined there were two qualities in public figures that I would not tolerate.

I would not tolerate rudeness.

I would not tolerate liars.

Our incumbent president pegs the needle on both counts.

I pity the man.  I’ll tell you why later.

Every day, our president justifies his role as a poster child for the worst qualities anyone in elective office can have. He is toxic to the American system.  And as long as members of his political party refuse to stand up for their roles in the American system of checks and balances, he will spread his blot upon the office of President of the United States.

I take a risk in writing these words for there are issues and causes in which I believe that will need support of members of his party—and I know these words might create hurdles that are not needed to accomplish some goals.  But there are times when tolerance reaches its limits. These comments are sure to arouse the tempers of those who believe Donald Trump is our country’s greatest president.  None of them, however, believe it more than he does. To be honest, Mr. Trump was my seventh-favorite candidate in a field of two in 2016.  Hillary Clinton was my fourth-favorite candidate in the field of two—and I don’t remember who ranked above them nor do I care anymore. Those who found Mr. Trump number one by far are free, as always, to leave comments in the box below these remarks. But I urge them to follow the guidelines if they expect to see them attached to the entry. I respect differing opinions but I respect them more if they are courteously presented and are more than echoes of his unfounded assertions.

History sometimes offers a cleansing perspective to events and people who are despised in their own time.  But it is difficult for those who find Mr. Trump reprehensible as a person and as a politician to anticipate a time when that might happen for him. Despite his self-proclamations of greatness, he seems during these years when his massive character flaws have been flaunted likely to be listed among the worst presidents in our national history.

I am afraid his positive accomplishments in office have been obscured by his own behavior and his own personality, by his lies and his rudeness.

He has shown manifold instances of believing the Congress is unnecessary and of believing that the Supreme Court is his to command.

He respects no one but himself and is quick to turn on those he has praised when they speak truthfully to him the first time. He shows little or no respect for the political party he claims to represent or for those within the party who place truth and service above loyalty to him. His attacks on Republican election officials and his firing of a lifelong Republican who headed the Homeland Security Cybersecurity program—who had the temerity to say this year’s elections were the most secure in history—are so clearly antagonistic toward the party that it is hard to accept that the party leadership can remain so acquiescent.

He’s a manipulator, an intimidator and with his run for the presidency and his securing that job, he has stood upon his own pedestal to proclaim greatness. He has walked on and over people to get where he is and has left no significant record of ever helping someone else up.

He lies.  If he were say to me, “Good morning,” I would not believe it.

He has no class.  No dignity.  He is not a man who brings out the best in us.  He doesn’t even try.  Everything is about him.

I wonder how many of the thousands who have gathered at his rallies want their children to grow up to be like him.

His behavior has been such that a record number of people voted on November 3 against him and his truculent behavior since bespeaks his lack of respect for the greatest symbol that our country can show the world—free and fair elections and peaceful transfers of power.   He seems incapable of understanding that his looney conspiracy theories are so outlandish that his own judicial appointees have found them embarrassing.

He knows he is the one thing he fears most.  He is a loser.

He believes in power over others, selective recognition of rights, and the idea that he might lose that power frightens him. He wants to remain “relevant,” meaning he wants to continue intimidating the timid souls in his own political party who only enable him to speak and behave outlandishly because they are afraid.

Instead of worrying about the minority that pledges undying support to him, the leaders of his party should turn away and seek an identity that draws a new constituency that makes ideals a goal rather than a constituency that idolizes a figure who cares not about his followers except in terms of their numbers. It is the party that must remain relevant and if the penalty for doing so is loss of control for a time, so be it. Relevance to a changing nation will pay off eventually. Obeisance is temporal but weakening.

Despite these harsh words, I pity him.

He is a man who grew up in a world of concrete, steel, tall buildings, wealth and privilege, in which money could replace apologies and in doing so encouraged unapologetic behavior.  He was never a Boy Scout. His military service consisted of being sent to a military school as a young teenager where he rose to the rank of captain of cadets until he was replaced. His version of why he was replaced differs from the recollections of other cadets whose recollections indicate he was not the team player or leader he should have been, which is no surprise to those who witness him today. There is no record that I have seen that he was ever been on a nature hike, never visited a national park to appreciate beauty outside the harsh scenery of tall buildings, never placed value in anything growing naturally.  He participated in few team sports—although he once claimed to have been the best baseball player in the state, he never made the varsity team at either of his colleges although he was on the Squash team at one of them. He has a car collection but it is unlikely you’ll find the kinds of Chevrolets, Fords, Dodges and Plymouths that are part of our lives. It is unlikely he ever mowed the family yard or raked the leaves after enjoying the colors they brought to the change of seasons.  He sees people such as us as pawns in his political games, playable pieces that have no meaning other than the ways he can move them to his benefit. He doesn’t appreciate people such as us because he has never shared any of our real-world joys, pleasures, responsibilities, and challenges.

As angry as I have become with his behavior, I feel pity for someone who has never truly had a chance to live outside of himself, to be one of the people he uses.

But pity does not generate tolerance.  He’s not the kind of person I would want as a neighbor.  We have neighbors who voted for him, probably, but we appreciate them more than he does.  He would never be invited onto my front porch for a quiet conversation over Cokes.

He wants to keep control of the Republican Party after he leaves the White House.  But the nation is changing and he cannot stop it.  It would be wise of his party to embrace the changes but it can only do so if it breaks his grip and becomes once again a party of Republicans rather than a party of someone who only claims to be one.

The success of down-ballot candidates of the party indicates many believe it is a viable part of our political system.  The results that show confidence below the top surely must be the guide that cannot be ignored when the party determines its  soul going forward.

–

And the winner—

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(Your faithful observer confesses to being less observant than he thought he was, as at least three of you faithful consumers have been good enough to remind me.  For those who don’t or won’t in the future know about that to which I refer, go on with your lives. For those who do, please note that I have made the slight correction you suggest, with thanks.  But Mr. Biden is still P45.)

—won’t be known until January 6, 2021, two weeks before inauguration day.

Not officially, anyway.

We think we’ll know.  The networks will think they know.  The print reporters and the pundits will think they know. But they won’t be correct until January 6.

Officially.

Before we launch into an explanation of those statements, we want to say two things.

First: Joseph Biden will NOT be the 46th President of the United States.  He will be the 45th.  He will lead the 46th presidential administration but he will be the 45th president.  Grover Cleveland screwed up the numbering system when he served two non-consecutive terms and somebody decided he would be the 22nd and 24th President.  He was not two people. But he did lead two administrations.   It’s a small thing. But there are those who get really irritated with the lack of clarity in describing Mr. Biden as our 46th president. If should be apparent who one of them is.

(On Monday, we heard Governor Parson talk briefly about what an honor it is to be Missouri’s 57th governor and to realize how small the group is of men who have led the state in its 200 years.  Actually, the group is more exclusive than that.  He’s our 55th Governor, serving the 57th administration.  Phil Donnelly was 41 and 43 and Christopher Bond was 47 and 49 in terms of state administrations. So Governor Parson is one of only 55.)

Second and more important to today’s discussion: Our county election officials and the hundreds of volunteers who filled various roles on election day—for pitifully little pay—did something remarkable two weeks ago. Not just in Missouri.  Nationwide. With all of the concern about trouble from poll watchers, concerns that the number of voters would overwhelm the system, that the pandemic added hostile and confusing elements, and with the U. S. Postal Service set up to be a fall guy if some absentee or mail-on ballots didn’t get counted, election day happened without noticeable problems beyond the usual ones.  Election days are never easy days for those responsible for administering them.  But November, 2020 should be remembered because our election authorities stayed focused on their jobs and their responsibilities and did a highly-praiseworthy job. Thank Heavens our state went Republican. Otherwise those good folks would be living with unreasonable accusations and insults they do not deserve.

Now, on with our explanation of why we won’t have an official winner until the first week of the new year.

A week ago today we went to bed and we woke up and we didn’t know who would take the oath of office in Washington on January 20, 2021.

There’s a lot about this process of picking a president that we have forgotten about—if we ever knew it.

First, there’s this reminder. You and I were not electing a president two weeks ago.  We were indicating a preference for a president. We were deciding which party’s electors would elect a president.  Missouri Democrats and Republicans each select ten electors, one for each of our members of congress plus two because we have two Senators.  Our system says the person who finishes ahead in the popular vote in Missouri gets all ten of our electors. The electors then vote for the president.  In 2016, Donald Trump won Missouri 10-0.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.  Our friend Phill Brooks, who started covering the Capitol about the same time your obedient servant did and writes a weekly political column about Missouri politics, said in a recent column, “the results reported on election night are neither official nor complete.”

Those of us who enjoy reporting the numbers on election night like to think they are, but Phill is correct. Mail-in and absentee ballots are counted after election day if they are postmarked by election day.  That’s why the numbers from the November 3 election were not certified by local election authorities on the spot.

But those are not the official numbers.

“The state law gives the state Board of Canvassers several more weeks before announcing the official state results based on those local reports,” Phill wrote. It is during this time that required recounts in local elections take place and protests or lawsuits are filed.  Once all of that is resolved and canvassers certify no problems with the count, a determination is made about which electoral college panel gets some work to do while the others go home.

The Missouri electoral college delegates will not meet until December 14.  Our ten D or R delegates will give all ten of Missouri’s real determining votes to the state winner, meaning Donald Trump will carry Missouri again 10-0.

But the winner is not determined then, either.

Congress collects all of the Electoral College reports and will hold a joint session on January 6. It will count the electoral votes and declare the person who got 270 or more electoral votes the winner of the big chair in the oval office.  Two weeks later that person will be inaugurated.

That’s how it works. We voted November 3 to pick someone from our district to represent all of the winner’s voters. That person will present all ten of our votes to one candidate.

And then it’s official.

The Secretary of State reports Donald Trump got 1,711,848 votes in Missouri last week. But actually, he got 10.  Joe Biden got 1,242,851.  Actually, he got none.  But thank you, 1,242,851 Missourians for taking part.

One other thing to mention.  Missouri saw 3,012,436 votes cast for president. The total number of votes cast (because some people did not vote for president but voted for other candidates or issues) is going to be more than that. But the number of votes for president was almost 200,000 more ballots that were cast in the 2016 election.

It has to be FRAUD, I tell you!

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I’ve been studying the Missouri results of the November 3 election and I believe we need some judges to declare there were fraudulent votes cast.  Thousands of them.

One need only look at the winning percentages of statewide Republican candidates to see evidence of illegal activity.

Missouri abolished straight-ticket voting in 2006.  But look at the winning percentages of top-of-the-ticket Republicans:

Trump 58.26%

Parson  57.17%

Kehoe  58.5%

Secretary of State 60.6%

Treasurer 59.2%

Attorney General 59.5%

Clearly, there’s something fishy here.  It’s impossible to have percentages this uniform unless there wasn’t illegal straight-ticket voting going on.  I’m not sure how it was done but it’s time to hire a lawyer, file a lawsuit, and accuse voters and local election authorities of plotting to assure a Republican sweep.

These votes should not have been counted because the percentages show there was clear tampering going on at the ballot box.  Chances are that a check of thousands of ballots will show remarkable similarities in the way the little ovals next to candidates’ names were filled in by reputed voters.

Furthermore, poll watchers were kept so far away from the tabulations that they could not closely examine the way the ballots were marked, thus being unable to challenge each ballot before it was processed.

All of the votes cast in the election of 2020 in Missouri should be voided because the uniformity of markings clearly shows extensive violation of the state election law against straight-ticket voting.

An investigation must be launched at the highest level to find the actual ballots that were removed so these fake ballots could be substituted and elections officials throughout Missouri should be jailed for their parts in this massive voter fraud that resulted in obvious straight-ticket voting ban.

Maybe the Democratic Attorney General of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, and nine other Democratic Attorneys General who have no business sticking their noses into a Missouri election should file a petition asking the United States Supreme Court to throw out all of the ballots showing near-uniform voting for President Trump and the five Republican statewide officers.

Note to Nicole Galloway:  This election is not over!

The whole election was a record-breaking fraud, I say.  FRAUD!!!  FRAUD!!!

A presidential favor

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Our president refuses to admit he’s a loser..

But that’s okay—although his personal behavior and his political attitude suggest he should be sent to his room without supper

—because he might be doing the country a big political favor with his stubbornness. .

Mind you, this is being written by a voter who didn’t cover the campaign or the national election returns with the intensity of the national media, whether friendly or fake in the eyes of the president.

The election was unique beyond the combatants.  It was unique in the process by which it was held, a process that is likely to continue in many parts of the country.  Early voting in one form or another is here to stay. Processing of those votes in this election seems to have satisfied most people, but not our president and his loyal supporters. The president is filing lawsuits right and left alleging various kinds of fraudulent actions that have denied him a second term. The complaints appear to lack evidence but our legal system does not require proof before a citizen files a complaint.

Critics have little good to say about all of this even though they are not surprised President Trump is being a poor sport about losing.

Our president is also a citizen and as with all of us, he has a right to ask the courts to remedy what he asserts is a wrong that has been done to him. It would be nice if he had firm proof to back up his attacks on the elections system and the people of both parties who administered it in this terrible time.

That aside, let us look at the positives he might be providing the country rather than dwell on the negative aspects of his personal behavior.

Your obedient servant sees at least two benefits to his actions.

First, in filing all of his lawsuits claiming the process was badly flawed, he is giving the courts multitudinous chances to confirm it was not.  He is giving the courts—perhaps ultimately including many judges that he appointed—an opportunity to confirm our elections system worked even under one of the most severe tests it ever has faced.

As this is written, he and his lawyers haven’t won a single case. His efforts to de-legitimize the election and the election process are, in fact, legitimizing them, thanks to his losses in the courts.  So cut him a little slack. So far he has proven the process he seeks to disprove.  Let him keep going.  In the end, the establishment of a 21st Century system of voting might be one of his biggest legacies, much as he might dislike the result.

Second, he is proving something upon which he has at times cast doubt—the concept that no one is above the law.  Not even the president.  In filing his lawsuits he is admitting that he does not have the power as President of the United States to void an election.  He has the same authority you or I have, the authority as a citizen to seek redress of perceived wrongs through the court system.  He’s not above us.  He is still just a citizen regardless of his title.

So let him go, even though his accusations and his lawsuits and his lack of cooperation with the president-elect’s transition effort is not good for the nation.  Let’s appreciate that he’s proving—although he doesn’t seem to want to—that two essential parts of our democracy are true—that no one is above or beneath the law including a president, and the election system not only works, it is capable of working under the greatest of strains.  It might need some fine-tuning after this, but once again, this latest use of the system given to us by our founders has continued to work.

Not good enough 

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A lot of people woke up losers today.

We have covered far more than one-hundred elections and we have noticed something about the losers. They seldom blame themselves for their loss.

It’s always somebody or something else—lying television commercials, lack of funding, an October surprise of some kind, misuse of the power of the incumbent during the campaign, a national or natural disaster, unfair media, among other reasons.

We’ve heard dozens of concession speeches. But not once has a losing candidate ever said, “I wasn’t good enough.”  But quite often that’s the reason people lose.  The voters have decided they’re not good enough for the job the candidates wanted.

A lot of factors go into voter decisions but in the end many of the votes are cast because citizens think the other candidate is better even if “better” is a matter of choosing a lesser evil—a self-condemning statement because surely there would have been better candidates if voters wanted to do more than complain on the day after.

Read or listen to the concession speeches this year.  Let us know if anybody says they just weren’t good enough.  Because, in all honesty, they weren’t