{"id":46937,"date":"2023-12-12T14:11:23","date_gmt":"2023-12-12T21:11:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/?p=46937"},"modified":"2023-12-14T03:10:06","modified_gmt":"2023-12-14T10:10:06","slug":"jimmy-carter-the-original-election-denier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/jimmy-carter-the-original-election-denier\/","title":{"rendered":"Jimmy Carter: The Original Election Denier"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

(Chuck Muth) \u2013 I was unaware that former President Jimmy Carter had his first election stolen.\u00a0 Thanks to Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation for this reminder and timely history lesson\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n

With the passing of Rosalynn Carter, former President Jimmy Carter lost his lifetime partner, and my deepest sympathies go out to him and his family. The former first lady\u2019s death, however, reminded me of something relevant to election integrity that many Americans may not realize: Organized voter fraud in Jimmy Carter\u2019s first run for office stole his election.
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The only reason Carter ended up in office when he did is because he claimed publicly that he had won and went to court to fight to overturn the election. Apparently, that\u2019s considered a criminal act in Georgia today and can get you charged with violating the state\u2019s racketeering law.
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Perhaps because of his personal experience, Carter is one of the few leaders in the Democrat Party who has acknowledged that people should be seriously concerned about election fraud, and who took steps to try to address the problem.
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One such step was the bipartisan recommendations by the 2005 Commission on Federal Election Reform, which Carter co-chaired with former Secretary of State James A. Baker III.\u00a0 Among the recommendations in the commission\u2019s final report was a call for states to implement \u201ca photo ID system for voters\u201d that would provide \u201cfree IDs for those without driver\u2019s licenses.\u201d
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Fortunately, Carter\u2019s home state of Georgia and many other states implemented that recommendation, as well as others made by the election reform commission, including measures intended to produce \u201ccomplete, accurate, and valid\u201d voter registration lists, which the commission said must be a goal of state election officials.
\u00a0
So, what happened to Carter when he first ran for the Georgia state Senate in Democrats\u2019 primary election of 1962? One of the best accounts was written by the late Jim Wooten, a highly respected former journalist and editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution who I had the privilege of knowing when I lived in Atlanta.\u00a0
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In his 1978 book \u201cDasher: The Roots and the Rising of Jimmy Carter,\u201d Wooten recounts how Carter decided to challenge the local incumbent, described as \u201can entrenched Establishment figure.\u201d Carter worked hard and campaigned throughout the Senate district. His prospects seemed high\u2014until he arrived in Georgetown, a small town in Quitman County, on Election Day.
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Carter saw \u201cno voting booths in the courthouse and all voters were marking their ballots on a table in full view\u201d of the \u201clocal legislator and dominant political boss,\u201d Wooten writes. The political boss was \u201csupervising\u201d the election and telling voters who to vote for, even pulling ballots out of the ballot box to check them.
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Carter\u2019s attempt to get the Columbus, Georgia, newspaper to write a story about the situation proved unavailing. After Carter called the newspaper from a local cafe, an editor sent out a reporter who happened to be friends with the local political boss. Carter said the reporter \u201cwas not interested in writing any story critical of election procedures in Quitman County,\u201d Wooten writes.
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By the end of Election Day, Carter was ahead by 70 votes. To no one\u2019s surprise, the results from Georgetown were the last to arrive. When they came in, Carter had lost by just a relative few votes.
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A total of 443 ballots were in the box, Wooten writes, \u201cand according to the names listed, 126 of them voted alphabetically!\u201d Moreover, when the \u201cballots were unfolded, there were sometime four to eight of them folded together,\u201d making it obvious that \u201cthe box had been stuffed.\u201d
\u00a0
Carter and a lawyer went to Georgetown. When they began taking statements from local residents, they discovered that \u201cwhat had happened that day had been going on on election days as long as most people could remember.\u201d
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The \u201clocal Democratic machinery laughed at [Carter\u2019s] efforts to reverse the decision,\u201d Wooten writes, because the election was over and there \u201cwas nothing he could do.\u201d
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But Carter and his lawyers doggedly continued their investigation, which resulted in their being followed by \u201clocal lieutenants of the organization\u201d and targeted by \u201cthreatening phone calls.\u201d They discovered that votes had been cast by individuals who \u201cwere dead, in prison, or had long ago moved away and voted in other communities.\u201d Others in whose names ballots had been cast said they hadn\u2019t actually voted.
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But the newspapers characterized Carter \u201cas a politically na\u00efve sorehead and a poor loser,\u201d while state Democrat Party officials were \u201caloof or downright hostile.\u201d The \u201clocal judge and district attorney had strong ties in the county\u201d and refused to do anything about the fraud, Wooten writes.
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However, Carter wouldn\u2019t give up even though the media, his own political party, and the local justice system were against him.
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The future governor and president went to court with a lawyer recommended by his friend Griffin Bell (who went on to become the 72nd attorney general of the United States during the Carter administration). Carter\u2019s lawyer, Charles Kirbo, managed to get a hearing before a judge outside the state Senate district in which Carter was running.
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That judge declared Carter the winner because the election in Georgetown was \u201cso thoroughly tainted by vote fraud that there was absolutely no way to determine what had been the voters\u2019 original and genuine intent.\u201d Accordingly, the judge said, the election would be decided by the votes cast elsewhere in the Senate district.
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One would have thought that would be the end of the story.\u00a0 But a bizarre procedural quirk allowed the now-losing candidate to appeal the judge\u2019s decision to Democrats\u2019 local Executive Committee, which was controlled by the corrupt local political boss. He reinstated the incumbent.
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Carter had to appeal to the state party chair, J.B. Fuqua, \u201ca newcomer to state politics,\u201d who supposedly was unavailable because of a hunting trip in Canada. Carter\u2019s lawyer went all the way to Canada, hunted down Fuqua, presented Carter\u2019s case, and convinced Fuqua to declare Carter the Democrat nominee the weekend before the general election.
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The Georgetown political boss eventually was convicted of voter fraud, not for what he did in Carter\u2019s election but for fraudulent acts in connection with a prior congressional election. Yet, this inveterate vote thief only drew a suspended sentence.
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Once in office as a state senator, Carter spearheaded a comprehensive reform of the state\u2019s election code that passed the Georgia Legislature. According to Wooten, Carter recalled that during the debate, \u201csomeone suggested as a compromise that no one be allowed to vote who had been dead more than three years.\u201d
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Keep in mind several points in this story. First, the importance of observers. If Carter had not seen what was happening on the ground in Georgetown, he would not have known his election had been stolen. Think about that the next time you hear opponents of election reforms argue that we need to restrict the access of observers.
\u00a0
Second, note the media\u2019s lack of interest in covering the story, and how Carter was criticized for raising doubts about the outcome of the election. That lack of interest extended to local prosecutors and judges who had ties to the political powers that be. Does that sound familiar, over 60 years later?
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Third, when the local political boss finally was convicted of voter fraud, he got a suspended sentence. That\u2019s another problem that occurs too frequently even when election fraud cases are investigated and prosecuted. The light sentences given by judges for attempts to subvert our democratic process often just don\u2019t fit the seriousness of the crimes.
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Fourth, the theft going on was all within the same political party, something that happens all too often, as demonstrated by the reported cases in The Heritage Foundation\u2019s Election Fraud Database. (The Daily Signal is Heritage\u2019s news outlet.)
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Fifth, Jimmy Carter\u2019s election to the Georgia state Senate, which he initially lost by a few votes, once again illustrates what the U.S. Supreme Court said in 2008 in Crawford v. Marion County, when it upheld Indiana\u2019s voter ID law. Fraud is especially troublesome, the high court ruled, when \u201cit could affect the outcome of a close election\u201d\u2014and we have close elections all the time in this country.
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Jimmy Carter\u2019s experience also brings up one final question, one that reminds me of an old proverb: \u201cMighty oaks from little acorns grow.\u201d
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If Carter had not had\u2014as Wooten aptly describes it\u2014the \u201cstubborn, dogged determination, fueled by his seething anger,\u201d to fight to overturn his stolen election, and hadn\u2019t been elected to the Georgia state Senate, the first step in his political career, would he ever have been elected president?
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We\u2019ll never know.<\/p>\n

* * * * * *<\/p>\n

7 Worst Habits of Highly Unelectable People<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Picking the wrong race<\/li>\n
  2. Picking the wrong district<\/li>\n
  3. Picking the wrong issues<\/li>\n
  4. Picking the wrong time<\/li>\n
  5. Picking the wrong consultants<\/li>\n
  6. Picking unnecessary fights with the media<\/li>\n
  7. Picking door-knocking over fundraising<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    FAMOUS LAST WORDS<\/strong>
    \u00a0
    \u201cAllowing someone to speak is not the same as compelling you to listen.\u201d \u2013\u00a0Seth Dillon of the Babylon Bee<\/em><\/strong>
    \u00a0
    Mr. Muth is president of Citizen Outreach, publisher of Nevada News & Views, and founder of CampaignDoctor.com.\u00a0 You can sign up for his conservative, Nevada-focused e-newsletter at MuthsTruths.com.\u00a0 His views are his own.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    (Chuck Muth) \u2013 I was unaware that former President Jimmy Carter had his first election stolen.\u00a0 Thanks to Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation for this reminder and timely history lesson\u2026 * * * * * With the passing of Rosalynn Carter, former President Jimmy Carter lost his lifetime partner, and my deepest sympathies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42053,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[748],"tags":[3466],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46937"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46937"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46939,"href":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46937\/revisions\/46939"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}