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With the elections on November 8 already a week ago, we are already conditioned to accept that some final results will not be known until December 16, five weeks later. The counting is crawling through counties up and down the state, and those of us with deep-seated political feelings should be impressed with the diligent performance of our election professionals.
In truth, however, no great nation on earth takes as long to count ballots, and no US state takes as long as California to count ballots. As of Nov. 15, there were still at least a dozen races for a U.S. congressional seat that remained undecided. Seven of them, more than half, are here in California.
What happened to the electoral process in California is a travesty. For more than 30 years, political power has steadily drifted towards what is now a one-party state. Democrats control every top office in the state, from the governor to the state superintendent of public instruction, and none of that will change. In the state legislature, Democrats control what is called a mega-majority in both the assembly and the senate. Unlike a supermajority, where two-thirds of a chamber’s seats are held by members of a single party, a mega-majority means that three-quarters of the seats are controlled by a single party. This too will not change once the final results are announced.
The reason for this party dominance, however, can be misleading, as it is not so much a party as a political machine, controlled by government unions, that wields power in Sacramento.
Years of sold-out government employee union dues have been spent on support campaigns to elect politicians obedient to these unions. After SCOTUS, in a 2016 ruling, relieved government employees from mandatory payment of union dues (or “agency fees”), union membership remains nearly universal, enforced by intimidating peer pressure internally by union officials. Union dues now average more than $1,000 per government employee, and with more than one million state and local government employees in California, these unions have more than $1 billion a year to work with. . As government membership grows, so does the financial foundation for even greater union dominance.
In particular, the growth of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) along with the teachers’ unions has created California’s two main sources of political destruction, funded by our own tax dollars to work against us. We voted for “education” and allowed the teachers union to destroy the curriculum in favor of indoctrinating a generation of young Californians to resent their nation, to reject hard work, to mistrust each other because of the color of their skin and develop narcissistic self-esteem. instead of marketable skills. We voted for humane social services, and instead we got insatiable, inefficient SEIU hires.
These syndicates move in unison – threaten one and the whole machine moves against anyone who dares to confront them.
Giving California to the government unions was the first phase of the destruction of California democracy. The second phase was already underway as we entered a new decade in 2020, but the COVID pandemic allowed full implementation within months. Winning elections that might otherwise be competitive has turned into a contest of formulas where only one political machine has the money and manpower to compete: government unions. The “reforms” they passed are based on four fundamental changes: universal mail-in ballots, early voting, same-day voter registration, and ballot harvesting.
If early voting trends show the union-backed Democrat facing an opponent whose voters are showing up in higher numbers than expected, they immediately pour more money into ballot harvesting in the weeks leading up to it. on polling day. Ballot collectors, using apps on their cellphones that are linked to proprietary databases, know which household residents have registered with which party. Early voting lets them know how many votes they will need, and harvesting ballots lets them control how many votes they will get. Everything is legal.
In cases where an election remains closed in the final days before the election, same-day registration is the next weapon deployed by the machine. Although in the just-concluded elections, the last day to register to vote as a traditional voter was October 24, paid and volunteer agents could help people register the same day as a voter. ‘conditional voter’ until election day, November 8. They know exactly who to register. For example, the teachers’ union has ensured that the vast majority of young voters are completely conditioned to vote for Democrats and despise Republicans. The machine has a profile for every eligible voter in the state. It knows where every person under 30 lives, and if they are not registered, it sends agents to get same-day registration and a provisional ballot, which they can then collect. And everything is legal.
This is the reality of the California election today. If anyone questions the ethics of ballot collection, or the accuracy of the database of registered voters from which ballots are sent to everyone, or the unfairness of Taxpayer-funded government unions that recruit candidates, pay for their campaigns, and use their enormous political machine to scientifically secure their victory, they are branded as “election deniers.”
Expect to be very surprised if one of California’s close races, from the US Congress to the local school board, ends up going to a Republican. The system is a joke. To have a fair election, Californians must go back to proven methods. If you want to vote, you must register six weeks or more before the election. Then, on Election Day, you go to a polling center, show ID, and receive a paper ballot. You mark the ballot manually to ensure that the markings actually reflect what you voted for or against. Then all of those ballots are tabulated at the precinct and county level, flagged at the end of the night, and recorded for future audit. It is a bribery-proof voting process.
Instead, we wait weeks for results that were ready in hours. All the while, we’re hoping against all the odds that the ideas our favorite candidates fought for attracted enough voters to beat the machine.
The opinions expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Epoch Times.