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Outside of the handling of COVID-19 and the limp cover-up of former President Joe Biden‘s cognitive decline, “errors” in the 2020 census are the biggest scandal of the 21st century.
“Errors” appear in scare quotes here for good reason. That census was so botched that it can rightly be questioned as intentional. Why? Because every “error” goes in the direction of favoring the Democratic Party and serving as a detriment to Republicans.
Overall, according to the Census Bureau’s own audit, almost every state that was “miscounted” — again, scare quotes for emphasis — had a positive impact for Democrats. Blue states, including New York, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Hawaii, were overcounted, while red states, including Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Texas, were undercounted.
According to a 2030 appropriation forecast study conducted by Carnegie Mellon University, Florida and Texas, both solid red states, are gaining four House seats each, while deep-blue states, including California, New York, and Illinois, are losing a combined eight.
And it only gets worse for Democrats: Georgia, North Carolina, Utah, Arizona, and Idaho, all states won by Trump in 2020, would gain one seat, while swing states such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania would lose one seat, along with the most liberal states in the country, Minnesota, Oregon, and Wisconsin, all losing one seat as well.
As for the Electoral College, Florida, Texas, Utah, Idaho, North Carolina, and Georgia, all Trump 2024 states, would gain a combined 11 electoral votes, while California, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Minnesota would lose 10 seats. Toss-ups Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, states won by Trump in 2016 and 2024 but lost in 2020, would also lose one electoral vote each.
Shake it all out, and Democrats would be forced to sweep the Rust Belt of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin and win some states in the Sun Belt — North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada — to win a presidential election. Good luck with that, especially if the party embraces another California nominee, such as Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) or former Vice President Kamala Harris, or a far-left socialist such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), all of whom are currently running as the most likely nominees in the betting markets and most polls. And if the states were counted properly in 2020, Trump would have gained nine electoral votes in 2024, making the final tally Trump 341, Harris 215.
And then there’s the profoundly backward, and arguably corrupt, rule of including those in the country illegally as part of the census. It’s a common-sense question: If they’re not legal citizens, why are they being legally counted? If an undocumented immigrant theoretically can’t vote, why should it be legally counted?
These are questions for the Supreme Court to tackle. But in the meantime, here’s how it’s playing out in the court of public opinion: According to a recent poll by Rasmussen Reports, 56% strongly or somewhat approve of a new census being conducted, while just 32% strongly or somewhat disapprove. Regarding counting illegal immigrants in the census, 52% said no, while just 36% said yes, and 11% are not sure.
So here’s the question: Why should the country have to wait until the 2032 election for this census to be completed? Why can’t it be done in time for 2028? And most importantly, should voter ID be required for all voters, as is the case for almost every other industrialized country in the world?
Per the Pew Research Center, 76% of black voters want voter ID, while 85% of white voters feel the same way, along with 82% of Latinos. A Fox News poll shows similar numbers, with 84% overall supporting voter ID.
No matter: Democrats on Capitol Hill are willing to go down with the ship in taking a hugely unpopular side here with the usual hyperbole.
“Polling does suggest — there’s a new Pew Research poll — that 95% of Republicans, but also 71% of Democrats, like this idea,” MS Now co-host Jonathan Lemire said on Morning Joe. “So, why do you not?”
“It’s Jim Crow 2.0, and I called it Jim Crow 2.0, and the right wing went nuts all over the internet,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said. “That’s because they know it’s true. What they’re trying to do here is the same thing that was done in the South for decades: to prevent people of color from voting.”
Acceptable forms of ID would include an ID that complies with the Real ID Act and indicates the holder is a citizen, including a passport, a military ID card, and military record of service that shows a person was born in the U.S., a government-issued photo ID that shows the person’s place of birth was in the U.S., and other forms of government-issued photo ID, if they’re accompanied by a birth certificate, comparable document or naturalization certificate.
Per CBS News, “The legislation would also require those who submit voter registration forms by mail to present proof of citizenship in person.”
Democrats, outside of Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), argue that asking for any of the ID options listed above would only lead to voter suppression, which is as ridiculous as the arguments we heard from the same party that said the border was closed, inflation was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fault, and Biden was as sharp as a tack.
“The question is that what Republicans are trying to do is to engage in clear and blatant voter suppression,” House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told CNN on Sunday with a straight face. “They know that if there‘s a free and fair election in November, they‘re going to lose.”
Like … in 2024 when Trump won every swing state, the popular vote, all while Republicans took back the Senate and held the House?
We’ve heard this argument before, in 2021, when the Biden administration also called new voter laws in Georgia “Jim Crow 2.0.” The criticism fell on its face after Georgia shattered voter records in all the elections that followed, while no minority complained of having any difficulty casting a vote.
The 2030 census cannot wait for 2030, nor should it. Under normal circumstances, that wouldn’t be an issue. But by the Census Bureau’s own admission, it screwed up deliberately or otherwise, given that red states were almost all the ones undercounted while blue states were given an artificial boost.
So if the numbers are wrong, how could any major election continue under false pretenses or faulty data?
“I have instructed our Department of Commerce to immediately begin work on a new and highly accurate CENSUS based on modern day facts and figures and, importantly, using the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Whether that effort comes to fruition before 2030 is another question. The 2026 midterm elections will undoubtedly fall under the old data, but the 2028 presidential election should be far enough away to right this wrong.
Trust in elections is at an all-time low. In 2016, a majority of Democrats actually believed the Russians hacked voting machines to change votes from Hillary Clinton to Trump.
“Two out of three Democrats also claim Russia tampered with vote tallies on Election Day to help the President, something for which there has been no credible evidence,” the left-leaning YouGov reported in 2018.
And in 2023, a CNN poll showed 69% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents viewed Biden’s 2020 win as illegitimate.
THE SMITHSONIAN BETRAYS THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
Until we have voter ID and an accurate U.S. census, Republicans will continue to cry foul after they lose, and rightly so.
Which may explain why Democrats are so hellbent on stopping two of the most common-sense changes we’ve seen in modern political history.
