Letters

Phil Keith nailed it in his recent Mostly Right column [“A Conspiracy Of Dunces,” Opinion, January 7]. To generalize from Phil’s specific example, the American public, as information consumers, is engulfed in an epistemological problem: We can’t agree on basic facts, and we can’t separate opinion from fact, and it’s preventing us from reaching consensus on important things like presidential elections and pandemics.

Phil cites the example of a Facebook group’s inability to accept basic data — the number of registered voters in the United States — giving rise to conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

Examples of weakly concocted voter fraud allegations abound, but there’s no better state to examine claims of voter fraud than Georgia. President Trump personally intervened in Georgia’s post-election recount, urging the Georgia secretary of state to “find” 11,780 more votes so that he could win Georgia by one vote.

Further, convinced by frenzied nightmare scenarios laid out by his election law team, a credulous Mr. Trump alleged eight separate charges of voter fraud. These allegations, rooted in a deep misunderstanding of Georgia election law, were debunked by Georgia’s voting system implementation manager, Gabriel Sterling, a lifelong Republican and a Trump supporter.

These are the allegations that were debunked: 2,056 felons voted, 66,248 underage teenagers voted, 2,423 unregistered people voted, 4,928 voted after the registration date cutoff, 10,315 deceased people voted, 395 people voted in two states. (A separate claim of absentee ballot signature mismatches also was debunked.)

Across the country, both Republican and Democratic judges tossed out voter fraud lawsuits. Sixty cases, including two before the U.S. Supreme Court, were determined to lack merit, standing or evidence.

Election fraud happens, but rarely. In 2017, President Trump directed Republican Kris Kobach to establish a commission to examine voter fraud in the 2016 election. That commission disbanded without any serious findings being made.

Closer to home, It is unfortunate that we are represented by a congressman contributing to this crisis of consensus that now undermines our democracy.

Mike Anthony

Westhampton