In January, I tested the Braver Angels waters, as a participant in a training about communication. In hindsight, their timing was sensational, because it was held a few short days before the assault on the Capitol. Today, I tested its debate format, as a listener. The night’s topic: “Voter fraud is a major problem in the United States.”
The first, brave, speaker led off with a carefully worded accusation that he thought no one, anywhere, investigated voter fraud sufficiently. He said the decisions that thwarted the previous administration’s lawsuits were made by ill-informed judges, without testimony. The first question, posed by another panelist, challenged his belief with quotes from justices that the arguments the previous administration’s lawyers presented were, politely, rubbish. The first speaker indignantly said he didn’t trust what any of these court cases said. He preferred to believe what he’d heard… out there… somewhere. Like his neighborhood diner and Facebook friends. “Some people say problems are much worse than what some East Coast professors say.”
Trust.
Ah. There’s the rub. The sources the honorable gentleman presented as trustworthy I personally find … dubious. The actual news media (as opposed to bloggers like myself, or regular purveyors of lies like Fox opinionaters) cannot find voluminous voter fraud. The impartial researchers who conduct data-based examination of voter records can find only 12 cases of voter impersonation in a dozen years. But data did not impress the speaker. Although he professed that he would change his mind if, and only if, someone could convince him of his errors.
But he apparently did not believe the Brennan Center for Justice. He shook his head vigorously when the next speaker turned to the inverse problem of voter fraud: voter suppression. This could not be real, because his sources did not think lost votes could be nearly as important as alleged fraud.
His arguments did not impress her. She wanted to know how a system based on voter integrity could countenance voter suppression. She detailed efforts in states like Georgia to throw people off the roles on the thinnest of pretexts. And she reminded listeners of the quote from a Republican elections official in Gwinnett, Georgia. That Elections Commission member said legislators should change election law so Republicans would “at least have a shot at winning.”
Such specious accusations and arguments have even shocked NPR:
That controversy had no basis in fact. Audits and recounts confirmed the accuracy of the vote count in Georgia, and lawsuits there and in other states by the Trump campaign and allies failed to show otherwise. But Trump sought to discredit the vote and even asked Georgia’s secretary of state to change the vote totals. Now Georgia lawmakers are moving to repair a system that was not shown to be broken.
My patience wore thin very quickly
I kept listening, because I wanted to see how the speakers would make the two sides of their arguments. And how Braver Angels think debate could lead to conversation. (My gracious, though, if you aren’t prepared, don’t enter this sandbox. I fear I could never be sufficiently ready.)
If I were a county auditor, I’d be livid at the aspersions speakers cast at my integrity, my ability to manage elections. On their behalf, I was furious. It will take me a long time to develop the patience and broad-mindedness to listen to what I think is malarkey.
Another thing I learned about myself… I prefer solutions to argument. And debate formats that present argument versus argument wear thin to me.
The speaker I admired most said the whole question of voter fraud was itself harmful to America’s discourse. Elections are a social compact: we trust our officials to run them properly. We trust our neighbors not to cheat, as they trust us. The speaker said plainly that proclaiming voter fraud, long before anyone cast a single vote, was ridiculous. And dangerous. And interestingly, none of the opposing speakers could find a way to dispute that danger.
Banner photo by Savvas Stavrinos from Pexels