The Democratic Party made a strategic mistake to ignore the problems of Republican owned “faith-based” voting machines. Canada uses paper ballots, counted by hand, not by computers with proprietary software. Their system is far from perfect, but at least they get the politicians they vote for.

The 2000, 2004 and 2016 presidential elections had “red shifts” between exit polls and the alleged results provided by voting machines in swing states. Georgia and Pennsylvania, among other states, have used touch screen voting machines that likely flipped recent state and federal elections.

Voter suppression in these and other states also shifted results enough to alter some outcomes. We need a new Voting Rights Act to guarantee the right to vote and to have votes counted correctly.

I am not a fan of Biden, but the Obama-Biden administration was competent regarding the 2009 H1N1 pandemic and the 2014 Ebola outbreak in west Africa. If Biden gets the job in January it is reasonable to assume the CDC and other public health agencies will be allowed to do their jobs regarding COVID containment.

It is ironic that the last ballots to be counted, which flipped several swing states, were mail-in votes cast by citizens concerned about contracting coronavirus due to Trump’s incompetent mismanagement.

The Trump campaign spread virus denial disinformation to immunize him from accountability for this avoidable outcome. Sadly, it’s not only Republicans who embraced this — there are also “new age” science deniers who inadvertently helped Trump. Painful lessons ahead.

Mark Robinowitz

Eugene