Commentary article:
The conservative writer Cynical Publius published an X article this week called “Some Hard Truths About Election Fraud,” and it has been read more than 450,000 times. It says something a lot of us feel and few of us like to admit: we are sure it happens, and we cannot prove it.
What Publius argues
Publius makes five points.
First, he writes that election fraud “absolutely does exist” and calls it “rampant.” He blames noncitizens registering to vote, dirty voter rolls, automatic mail-in ballots, no voter ID, drop boxes and ballot harvesting, which he says let “disreputable Democrats” submit fake or manipulated votes “in a virtually untraceable manner.”
Second, and this is the heart of it, he says the system was built so the fraud cannot be proved. If a Republican loses by 2,000 votes, he writes, you would need “2,001 individual, ironclad cases” of fraud, each meeting a court’s standard of evidence, all before certification. “It’s the perfect crime,” he says.
Third, if anyone has a real way to prove it at a state or national scale, he is “all ears.” But “we cannot have any more ‘krakens.'”
Fourth, the only fix is politics: show up in the primaries, organize locally, win, and pass reform. His list is election-day voting, paper ballots only, no automatic mail-in, absentee ballots only for the military and the ill, no drop boxes, no ballot harvesting, updated rolls and voter ID. He says 2024 showed the fraud “is not so big that it cannot be overcome.”
Fifth, he claims a “Color Revolution” plot depends on Democrats winning the midterms and on conservatives reacting in “irrational and perhaps violent” ways, which he says would be the trigger to overthrow Trump. That is his claim, not something I can confirm. But his advice is right either way. Do not hand anyone that excuse.
The feeling and the proof
Here is where I land. Most of the people I hear from believe elections are being tampered with. I understand why. When ballots go out to every address on a roll nobody has cleaned in years, when drop boxes sit unwatched overnight, and when strangers can collect ballots in bulk, it feels like the door has been left open. Feeling the door is open is reasonable.
But a feeling is not evidence, and a court will not overturn an election on one.
The proof gap is real. In Ohio, the state made 167 federal referrals of noncitizens who appeared to have voted, and a year later three had been charged, the Daily Signal reported. Secretary of State Frank LaRose told the outlet, “It’s difficult to get county prosecutors to prosecute voter fraud cases. They become prosecutors to go after murderers and rapists.” The Justice Department announced charges against 63 more people on Nov. 2 and says it has charged 239 since this administration began. Those are cases, and they matter. But hundreds of cases spread across a country this size do not show that any race was decided by them.
It can be proved when the evidence is there. In 2018, North Carolina’s elections board unanimously threw out the 9th District result after investigators found a “coordinated, unlawful and substantially resourced absentee ballot scheme” run by an operative working for the Republican side. It took 142 voter interviews, dozens more witness interviews, subpoenaed bank and phone records, and months. That is what proof looks like, and it is exactly why it is so rare.
The bottom line
Publius is right that we cannot keep chasing krakens. Every big claim that collapses in court makes the next real one easier to dismiss. If you believe fraud happened in your county, document it: names, dates, addresses, photos, sworn statements. Become a poll watcher. Sign up as an election judge. Ask your county for its roll-maintenance records.
Then do the thing Publius says works. Vote in the primaries, back candidates who will pass voter ID and clean rolls, and close the doors we all feel are open. We do not have to prove every stolen vote to fix the rules that make stealing one so easy to hide.