Teach
01-26-2017, 06:56 AM
“They got nineteen hits,” I said to my father. “Nineteen hits,” I repeated. The “They” I was referring to were the Chicago White Sox. My father had taken me that 1950s afternoon to Fenway Park see the Boston Red Sox play the “Pale Hose”. It was game, amazing as it may seem, in which the Red Sox collected about a dozen fewer hits than the White Sox. Yet, in the end, the Red Sox prevailed. They won the game by a score of 5-4.
As I recall the White Sox left men on base in every inning. They had numerous scoring chances, but they just couldn’t produce the clutch hit when they needed it. The Red Sox, on the other hand, collected relatively few hits, but most of them went for extra-bases. I remember saying to my father after the game, “If hits determined victory then the Red Sox would have lost by a lopsided score.” My father then stated the obvious. He said, “Walt, we both know that hits don’t mean a thing when it comes to the outcome of a game.” And that’s the point.
Moreover, in presidential elections it doesn’t mean diddley-squat - at least as far as the outcome of the election is concerned - how many national popular votes a candidate receives. We’re all aware that the number of Electoral College votes each candidate receives determines the outcome of the election. Trump garnered 306 electoral votes. That number exceeds the 270 electoral votes needed for victory. Thus (it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist), Donald J. Trump won the 2016 Presidential election. Yet, President Trump is now alleging that there was voter fraud to the tune of between 3 to 5 million votes. As I understand it, he believes that alleged fraud cost him the victory in the popular vote tally. For reference purposes, the combined population of the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island is approximately 4.6 million people. That means, nationally, on an equivalent basis, nearly every man, woman and child who lives in those two states would have to have committed voter fraud. Personally, that boggles my mind.
Further, President Trump has cited that some people are registered to vote in different states; that may well be true. We live in a transient society. Sure, if you lived in Hoboken, NJ and moved across the Hudson River to Manhattan, you might possibly think of voting twice. That is if you wanted to take the time, effort and bother of crossing and then re-crossing the GW Bridge (people registered to vote in two different states is more a matter for individual state elections commissions than voter fraud). Frankly, in the majority of cases of double voter registration, it would likely involve traveling hundreds if not thousands of miles, say from Massachusetts to Florida or from New York to California. Realistically, who’s going to bother? How many people are going to travel hundreds and hundreds of miles just to cast two ballots?
Also, of those 3 to 5 million alleged fraudulent votes, I believe the President feels that all of those votes went to Hillary Clinton. Another unlikely scenario. Neither political party is immune to instances of voter fraud. Nobody has a monopoly on this.
As I understand it, President Trump feels that illegal immigrants comprise the vast number of those who committed voter fraud. I also see that as an unlikely scenario. If I’m an illegal, undocumented immigrant, I would think twice about going into polling places. In fact, that might be one of the last places I would want to go to. Too many questions. Possible need to supply proof of residence. Documentations. Too risky.
As I see it, it’s like that baseball game that I saw with my father back in 1950s. The White Sox got several more hits, but they scored fewer runs. The Red Sox won. The White Sox lost. That’s the ballgame.
As I recall the White Sox left men on base in every inning. They had numerous scoring chances, but they just couldn’t produce the clutch hit when they needed it. The Red Sox, on the other hand, collected relatively few hits, but most of them went for extra-bases. I remember saying to my father after the game, “If hits determined victory then the Red Sox would have lost by a lopsided score.” My father then stated the obvious. He said, “Walt, we both know that hits don’t mean a thing when it comes to the outcome of a game.” And that’s the point.
Moreover, in presidential elections it doesn’t mean diddley-squat - at least as far as the outcome of the election is concerned - how many national popular votes a candidate receives. We’re all aware that the number of Electoral College votes each candidate receives determines the outcome of the election. Trump garnered 306 electoral votes. That number exceeds the 270 electoral votes needed for victory. Thus (it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist), Donald J. Trump won the 2016 Presidential election. Yet, President Trump is now alleging that there was voter fraud to the tune of between 3 to 5 million votes. As I understand it, he believes that alleged fraud cost him the victory in the popular vote tally. For reference purposes, the combined population of the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island is approximately 4.6 million people. That means, nationally, on an equivalent basis, nearly every man, woman and child who lives in those two states would have to have committed voter fraud. Personally, that boggles my mind.
Further, President Trump has cited that some people are registered to vote in different states; that may well be true. We live in a transient society. Sure, if you lived in Hoboken, NJ and moved across the Hudson River to Manhattan, you might possibly think of voting twice. That is if you wanted to take the time, effort and bother of crossing and then re-crossing the GW Bridge (people registered to vote in two different states is more a matter for individual state elections commissions than voter fraud). Frankly, in the majority of cases of double voter registration, it would likely involve traveling hundreds if not thousands of miles, say from Massachusetts to Florida or from New York to California. Realistically, who’s going to bother? How many people are going to travel hundreds and hundreds of miles just to cast two ballots?
Also, of those 3 to 5 million alleged fraudulent votes, I believe the President feels that all of those votes went to Hillary Clinton. Another unlikely scenario. Neither political party is immune to instances of voter fraud. Nobody has a monopoly on this.
As I understand it, President Trump feels that illegal immigrants comprise the vast number of those who committed voter fraud. I also see that as an unlikely scenario. If I’m an illegal, undocumented immigrant, I would think twice about going into polling places. In fact, that might be one of the last places I would want to go to. Too many questions. Possible need to supply proof of residence. Documentations. Too risky.
As I see it, it’s like that baseball game that I saw with my father back in 1950s. The White Sox got several more hits, but they scored fewer runs. The Red Sox won. The White Sox lost. That’s the ballgame.