Going into the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump openly speculated that the election would be "rigged."

Trump's words were never so true. Topping off all the speculation of how much tampering was done is the latest 1,000 page Senate report that, according to the Washington Post concluded, "The Russian government undertook an extensive campaign to try to sabotage the 2016 American election to help Mr. Trump become president, and some members of Mr. Trump's circle of advisers were open to the help from an American adversary."

This of cause, was only the tip of the iceberg. When I lived and worked as a journalist in Carbon County, Pennsylvania in the early 2000s, I witnessed a dismantling of our democratic system by the GOP, under the banner of the Tea Party.

Our town of Jim Thorpe had a wonderful representative, Keith McCall, a Democrat who after many years had become the Speaker of the House during the 2009–2011 legislative session.

And then, McCall announced that he was leaving government. I spoke with him and asked him why. He said that it was getting "too toxic." By the late 200s elections, the Republican party through a combination of corporate funding, aggressive name-calling ads, and misrepresentation garnered enough votes in enough small towns to win back the Pennsylvania State House.

Once in power, when the 2010 census came about, they used their majority to gerrymander the districts for the following election. McCall's home was put on a jut of land that placed him in another town, one where he had little connection. Jim Thorpe's Federal Representative voting district was reset to a meandering conservative area about five miles wide by 50 miles long.

But what seemed to be the most dangerous of all was what happened to the voting booths. The town had perfectly good mechanical voting booths. These booths were already paid for, were reliable and there was no way anyone could mess with them remotely.

But without any necessity, these booths were replaced with electronic voting machines AND the Pennsylvania legislature required that they HAVE NO PAPER VERIFICATION.

I felt then as I feel now, that there was every opportunity that these voting machines could be compromised—just waiting for the right election to come by.

While some things have since changed, some things have not, and we all know that every electronic machine can be hacked.

And we know that Russia has been hacking electronic systems for the benefit of Trump. So, how likely is it that Trump had been counting on compromised voting machines in swing states with no paper trail?

Trump calls voting by mail to be "rigged." But by now, we all know that what he really means is that voting by mail can upset his planned "rigged" electronic voting machine election.

He's afraid that the best laid plans of mice and men are likely to go astray.

I hate to say this, but at least something positive seems to be coming out of Covid. Perhaps God is watching over us.

~ Al Zagofsky