Letters

U.S. Representative Lee Zeldin has been excoriated in these pages [“Reality Check,” Editorial, December 17] and elsewhere for his support of a Texas lawsuit attempting to overturn a presidential election — an election deemed by Democratic and Republican election officials in all 50 states to have been free and fair.

This case was summarily dismissed by the Supreme Court, just one more judicial failure for those attempting to undermine our democracy. In more than 50 attempts, Trump supporters were not able to convince a single American court that there was any significant voter fraud. In fact, Trump’s lawyers, led by Rudy Giuliani, have refused to offer up any examples of vote manipulation inside a courtroom, where they were under oath and subject to judicial penalties.

Opining on one of Trump’s lawsuits, a federal appeals court justice said, “Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.”

Mr. Zeldin’s support of this attack on our democracy is indefensible. Unless you are reader Ed Surgan. I have read plenty of inane comments in the Letters pages. (Perhaps some would argue that at least a few have appeared above my signature.) But one statement in Mr. Surgan’s latest submission [“Very Clear,” Letters, December 24] has, in its absurdity, surpassed all others.

He writes that the lawsuit in question was “mostly an attempt by the Trump loyalists to demonstrate their fealty one last time to their supporters and president. It was not the distorted effort to subvert the election it was portrayed as.”

Putting aside the sad fact that Mr. Zeldin and the other Republican representatives and state attorneys general felt obligated to undermine one of the pillars of our democracy — free elections — just to assuage Mr. Trump’s hurt feelings, are we to now assume that it was all just a prank? Did the supporters of this anti-democratic suit pass a secret message to the Supreme Court’s justices: “Hey, guys, we don’t really believe this stuff. We’re just trying to make the boss feel better”?

In a world where Trump advisor Michael Flynn is openly calling for the declaration of martial law and the nullification of the election, I find it impossible to believe that the attempt by Mr. Zeldin and his Republican cohorts was nothing less than an anti-American and undemocratic power grab, which, if successful, would have marked the beginning of the end of our American democracy.

For this, our congressman should never be forgiven.

John Neely

Westhampton Beach