Order of the Ephors – Can the Republic be saved?

Not since the days of the Civil War, some 170 years ago, have we seen such hatred, such blatant disregard for the rule of law as we’ve been witness to in the days before and since the 2020 General Election.  Although instances of massive vote fraud were found across the country, it appears as if Democrats concentrated their efforts in the states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.  In the days since the election, thousands of decent, patriotic Americans have stepped forward to sign sworn affidavits, testifying under penalty of perjury, to instances of Democratic vote fraud that they had personally witnessed in the polling places and the canvassing rooms on Election Day, and beyond.  

Trump supporters were infuriated.  After proudly casting their votes for a “plain-spoken,” no-nonsense businessman who promised to reverse the social and economic downtrends that threatened our economy, our military superiority, our cultural norms, our very existence, tens of millions of the Trump faithful were told that reports of massive vote fraud were just a “myth.”  Democrats and their media propagandists insisted, “Nothing to see here, folks… just sit down and SHUT UP!”  But Republicans who cherish their right to vote knew better; they knew that their votes had been thoughtlessly invalidated by the criminal acts of Democrat politicians.

What followed was a deluge of lawsuits in federal and state courts, challenging the election results in state after state.  Although it is not known precisely how many lawsuits were filed, at least eighty lawsuits were filed in just the six target states… most of which were rejected on procedural grounds without being evaluated on merit.  However, lawsuits filed in the U.S. Supreme Court concerning Arizona and Michigan election results are scheduled for conference by the full court on February 26.  The full court will conference on cases filed in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on Friday, February 19. 

Trump supporters who had openly and honestly performed their civic duty were left to ponder: where do the Democrats find such people?  Where do they find people who would so willingly participate in the defrauding of more than 70 million of their countrymen?  How could it be that a man who had attracted more than 70 million votes and who had attracted massive crowds, day-in, day-out, in venues all across the country… how could such a man be defeated by an opponent who was not only physically and intellectually impaired, who was morally and ethically challenged, who hid out in the basement of his Delaware home for nearly the entire campaign season, and who had selected as his running mate a woman who could not meet the “natural born” standard required by the U.S. Constitution?  Republicans asked what We the People could do to seek restitution, to regain that precious franchise that had been stolen from them. 

In every city, town, and hamlet across America, Republicans mourned the loss of one of their most prized possessions.  And when the members of the Electoral College met on December 14 to cast their votes for a president and vice president, the Biden-Harris electors failed to meet the solemn obligation that the U.S. Constitution demands of them.  As such, the only remaining opportunity the People had to seek justice was the January 6 joint session of Congress when the members would meet to count the electoral ballots and to certify the election of a president and vice president.  Trump supporters knew that if enough members of Congress could be convinced to object to the tainted electoral count in their home states, justice was still within reach.  

For example, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, where Vice President Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by just 81,660 votes, illegal and unconstitutional tinkering with state election laws by Democratic state officials was sufficient to have all 20 of the state’s electoral votes invalidated.  So, is it any wonder that, when the Trump campaign announced a rally to be held at The Ellipse, in Washington, on Wednesday, January 6^th, the day on which the Congress was scheduled to count the electoral ballots and to certify the results, tens of thousands of American patriots, frustrated and enraged beyond words, made immediate plans to travel to Washington to do whatever they could to reverse the stolen election of 2020?  In his remarks to his supporters, the president said:

“We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated… lawfully slated.  I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard…”

He could not have known that, even as he uttered those words, an unruly mob on Capitol Hill had already forced its way past police barricades and into the halls of the Capitol itself.  Nor could he have predicted that, in the days that followed, congressional Democrats would use his non-violent words at The Ellipse as the basis for an article of impeachment.   

The impeachment article proclaimed that, during his speech to supporters at The Ellipse, Trump “willfully made statements that, in context, encouraged – and foreseeably resulted in – lawless action at the Capitol, such as: ‘if you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a county anymore,’ and ‘Donald John Trump engaged in high Crimes and Misdemeanors by inciting violence against the Government of the United States.’”

In a January 13 vote by the full House of Representatives, just seven days before Joe Biden was sworn in on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, Donald Trump became the first U.S. president in history to be impeached twice.

In the weeks and months following the November 3 election, the American people were forced to listen to endless protestations by Democrats, the mainstream media, and even a substantial number of their fellow conservatives and Republicans, asserting that charges of massive vote fraud were untrue, and that Joe Biden was the duly elected president of the United States.  Knowing that to be untrue, all they could feel was a blinding rage. 

Throughout the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump, as Democrats attempted to lay blame for the January 6^th attack on the U.S. Capitol, the massive vote fraud that allowed Democrats to claim victory was the unspoken “elephant in the living room.”  In fact, it was a political development far more significant than the proverbial “elephant in the living room.”  History will record the theft of the U.S. presidency in 2020 as an Earth-shattering event equal in significance to a massive meteorite crashing into the Earth.  Yet, through all the sound and fury of Donald Trump’s second impeachment, Democrats treated the theft of the 2020 General Election as if it never happened… as if the fraudulent election returns and the attack on the U.S. Capitol were totally unrelated events.

They were not.  They were, in fact, directly related as cause and effect.  The theft of the 2020 General Election was the greatest political crime in recorded history.  Republican leaders should have known that Democrats would attempt to steal the election and they took minimal steps to prevent it.  If politically astute Republicans knew that the 2020 General Election would be marred by fraud, violence, and intimidation, why did party leaders not know? 

The February 15, 2021 edition of Time Magazine contains a 26-page exposé, titled “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election,” explaining in great detail how Democrats stole the election.  The authors were filled with such hubris that, instead of claiming success in “rigging” the election, as Trump feared, they simply claimed success in “fortifying” it.

The ball is now in the Republican court and the leaders of the party have a lot of work to do.  For example, like 70 million of my countrymen… and before I will ever again be able to speak a civil word to a Democrat… I need to know to what extent the election was stolen. 

For example, is it true that, in Arizona, where Joe Biden’s victory margin was 10,457 votes, election officials allowed 36,473 non-citizens to cast ballots? 

Is it true that, in Georgia, where Biden’s victory margin was just 11,799 votes, some 66,247 seventeen-year-old teens were allowed to vote?  

In Michigan, where Biden’s victory margin was 154,818 votes, did election officials tally 174,384 votes cast by voters who lacked legally-required registration numbers? 

In Pennsylvania, where the Biden victory margin was 81,660 votes and the number of people who voted outnumbered the total number of registered voters by 170,830, who were those “ghost” voters, and who did they vote for?  

In Wisconsin, where the Biden victory margin was 20,682 votes, who were the 216,000 voters who claimed status as “indefinitely confined,” thereby escaping the need to appear at the polls to provide voter identification before casting their ballot?  

If Democrats are serious about passing H.R. 1, codifying all of the illegal tactics they used in the 2020 election, including the use of massive unrequested mail-in ballots, one wonders if Republicans will be up to the task of defeating it.

Until all of the above questions can be answered to my satisfaction, I will insist that Joe and Jill Biden are merely “squatters” occupying the White House.  I will assume that the Oval Office is currently unoccupied, and I will be prepared to join with 70 million other Trump supporters to do whatever is necessary to reverse the wrongs that have been done to our party and to our great nation… literally, to “Make America Great Again.”

Paul R. Hollrah is a native of Missouri, a retired government relations executive, and a two-time member of the U.S. Electoral College.  He currently lives and writes among the hills and lakes of northeast Oklahoma’s Green Country.

by Paul R. Hollrah
September 9, 2020

Throughout their entire history as a political party, Democrats have worked diligently, day and night, to find creative new ways to steal elections.

On Tuesday, November 3, 2020, some 130,000,000 Americans will choose a new president and vice president to manage the executive branch of our federal government for the next four years.  It will be the most momentous decision they will ever make because the outcome of the election may very well determine our future as a free people.  It will likely be the most crucial decision the American people have made since the General Election of 1864, in which President Abraham Lincoln defeated Democrat George B. McClellan.    

According to a September 11, 2014, story in the Washington Post, the New York legislature enacted a mail-in ballot law in April 1864, a law intended to ensure the right to vote for all New York citizens who were serving in the military.  A Lincoln supporter of Clinton County, New York, Orville Wood, was sent to Fort McHenry, in Maryland, where the 91^st New York was quartered.  His job was to ensure that the Clinton County ticket was properly voted.

Under the New York mail-in ballot law, troops in the field were able to authorize fellow New Yorkers to carry their ballots back home and cast them in their stead.  In addition to mail-in ballots, troops received a power of attorney form which required four signatures: the voter’s, the person authorized to receive the ballot, a witness to the signed affidavit, and a fellow officer.

A man named Moses Ferry, a McClellan supporter, had been appointed by New York Governor Horatio Seymour to oversee the handling of mail-in ballots for all New York troops in the field.  However, by the time Wood visited Ferry’s Baltimore office, he was already hearing whispers that fraud had been committed in the handling of the New York ballots.  With that suspicion in mind, Wood decided to masquerade as a Democrat and a strong McClellan supporter. 

When he arrived at Ferry’s office, he was informed that the votes of the 91^st Regiment had already been tallied and that McClellan, a Democrat, had received 400 votes and Lincoln just 11 votes.  Convinced of Wood’s feigned allegiance, Ferry quickly recruited him as a co-conspirator, assigned him a desk, and put him to work forging the signatures of non-existent members of the 16^th New York Cavalry. 

After being introduced to a close associate and leading co-conspirator of the New York ballot fraud, Edward Donahue, Jr., Wood soon learned that the ballot fraud was being perpetrated by a team of some 20 co-conspirators.  He then reported the fraud to authorities and two weeks before the 1864 election, Ferry and Donahue stood trial in a military court. 

In addressing the military tribunal, the judge advocate noted that Donahue had engaged in a “tremendous fraud against America – a fraud which, if it shall be successful, will, in my opinion, have produced a disruption of our entire country, and our war for the preservation of the Union will be practically at an end and futile.”  He went on to say, “A crime so enormous as this calls for a vigorous punishment, and I do not hesitate to say merits the extreme penalty of death.”

Although they ultimately escaped the hangman’s noose, Ferry and Donahue were each sentenced to life in prison for their attempt to manipulate the 1864 mail-in ballot process.  It is a crime that partisan Democrats clearly do not take seriously.  If only our courts in 2020 could be counted upon to take evidence of vote fraud just as seriously.

Wall Street Journal reporter John Fund, author of the book, “Stealing Elections – How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy,” tells of the experience of University of Oregon Professor Melody Rose.  Professor Rose has testified that “Ballots can easily be stolen from mailboxes, and registered voters who don’t vote wouldn’t bother to inform election officials if they failed to receive a ballot.”  Professor Rose reported that she, herself, once stopped by a library, after hours, to deposit her ballot, only to find an overflowing bin of ballots in a box in the lobby.  She speculated that she could easily have taken all of them to her car and done some “creative pruning,” based on where people lived or their gender.  

In the aftermath of the Civil War, it was some years before Democrats were able to reestablish the political power they had enjoyed before the war.  However, in the 1892 General Election, Democrats took control of the White House and both houses of Congress.  They saw it as a golden opportunity to repeal most, if not all, of the civil rights legislation passed by Republicans in the 26 years since the close of the war.  Accordingly, they introduced The Repeal Act of 1894, which would have removed all federal marshals stationed throughout the South for the purpose of guaranteeing the voting rights of former slaves.  The repeal passed the House on October 10, 1893, and the Senate on February 7, 1894.  Just before the final vote, Senator George Hoar (R-MA) took the floor and presented the following argument.  He said:

“Wherever there is a crevice in our protection of the freedom of the ballot there you will find the Democratic Party trying to break through.  Wherever we have left open an opportunity to get possession of an office contrary to the true and constitutional will of the majority, there you will find that party pressing; there you will find that party exercising an ingenuity before which even the great inventive genius of (the) American People, exerted in other directions, fails and is insignificant in the comparison…  

“Mr. President, this is a question of fraud or no fraud.  They tell us that there have been some Republican invasions of the elective franchise, and it is quite possible, but where can you find one well-authenticated case of a man who has been deprived or inconvenienced in the exercise of his franchise by these United States marshals or other officers, I will pledge myself to find ten thousand well established by evidence on record here where, without those securities, Republicans have been deprived of their votes by Democratic practices.  I incur no danger in making that challenge.  If you will produce me a citizen of the United States, a Democrat, who lost his honest vote in consequence of intimidation or impediment created by these United States marshals, I will find on record here the proof of ten thousand Republicans who have lost their votes by Democratic practices…. 

“Mr. President, the nation must protect its own.  Every citizen whose right is imperiled, if he be but one, when it is a right of national citizenship and a right conferred and enjoyed under the Constitution of the United States, has the right to demand for its protection the entire force of the United States until the Army has spent its last man and the Navy fired its last gun.  Most of us have nothing else than the right to vote….  The urn in which the American casts his ballot ought to be, aye, and it shall be, as sacred as a sacramental vessel.”

There is no evidence that Democrats have “cleaned up their act” in the 126-year period since Senator Hoar threw down the gauntlet in such dramatic fashion.  For example, a study conducted by the New York Post immediately after the November 2000 General Election, found that 14,496 New York City area residents were registered to vote in both New York and Florida.  Many of those individuals vote in person in one jurisdiction and by absentee ballot in the other, apparently unaware that failure to report a prior voter registration is punishable by up to five years in prison in Florida and up to four years in New York.  It’s time we insisted that those laws be enforced.

How widespread is double voting?  A National Review story published on April 2, 2014 reported the results of a study of the 2012 General Election conducted by the North Carolina Board of Elections.  The study compared North Carolina’s voter rolls to those of 27 other states and 101 million out-of-state voter records.  It found that 35,570 North Carolina voters shared the identical first name, last name, and date of birth with persons who voted in other states.  Another 765 North Carolinians who voted in 2012 shared the same names, birthdays, and final four digits of a social security number as voters in other states.  On January 26, 2019, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that his state had discovered 95,000 non-citizens on the voter rolls going back to 1996, 58,000 of whom had voted in at least one Texas election.       

As a means of preventing fraudulent in-person voting, Republicans have supported legislation requiring voters to provide a recent photo-ID before voting.  Democrats have opposed the legislation in every instance, in spite of the fact that a photo-ID is required when purchasing cigarettes and alcohol, opening a bank account, applying for public assistance, applying for Medicaid or Social Security, renting or purchasing a home or an automobile, boarding an airplane, purchasing a firearm, and numerous other everyday activities.

Why would Democrats oppose photo-ID laws and support mail-in ballots so strenuously?  There is only one correct answer to that question, and we all know what it is.  Their purpose is to make the system as fraud-friendly as possible because they know they cannot win elections honestly.

There can be little doubt that, if the Democrats’ demand for a universal mail-in ballot is successful, the process of determining a winner in the 2020 presidential election will be a complete fiasco, a national embarrassment, a process that could end in massive bloodshed. 

Given the level of murder, mayhem, looting, and arson that now takes place in Democrat-controlled cities all across America, those of us who honor the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, and the Rule of Law are well-advised to prepare for a long period of civil unrest.  It appears to be a price Democrats are willing to pay for the opportunity to place the levers of international power into the hands of a befuddled old man from Delaware and a constitutionally ineligible and politically radical female from the once-great state of California.  God save us.      

Paul R. Hollrah is a retired government relations executive and a two-time member of the U.S. Electoral College.  He currently lives and writes among the hills and lakes of northeast Oklahoma’s Green Country.