The steps being taken by both political parties with regard to mail-in ballots for the Mid-Term elections brings to mind the expression “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
The Republicans desperately want to limit voting to those who can show proof of their identity and citizenship.
The Democrats oppose this.
2020 Presidential Election Results
At midnight on election night in 2020 President Donald Trump was the winner. However, each subsequent night after midnight more “mail-in” and other ballots were “found” that reduced his lead until on Friday morning Biden was declared the winner.
Republicans point to the anomaly in the number of mail-in ballots in the 2020 election compared to the number of mail-in ballots in previous presidential elections and then, specifically, in the 2024 presidential election:
2004: 15 million
2008: 23 million
2012: 27 million
2016: 33 million
2020: 70 million
2024: 49 million
FYI, the very short time between when Joe Biden was declared the winner and the votes being certified prevented any of the more than 60 lawsuits from ever being decided on the facts.
The states controlled by Democrats refused to verify that those voting were live citizens registered to vote in their states.
Executive Order
On March 31, 2026, President Trump signed Executive Order 14399 (EO) Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections.
This Order:
Directed DHS, working with the Social Security Administration, to compile state-by-state lists of confirmed U.S. citizens age 18 and older.
Directed the Postal Service to transmit mail-in and absentee ballots only under uniform security rules, including official Election Mail markings, unique Intelligent Mail barcodes, and state-submitted lists of the voters receiving those ballots.
In plain English: the federal government should not be hauling ballots across the country to names that have never been checked against federal citizenship and identity records.
California and the District of Columbia led 23 blue states in challenging the implementation of the EO in the Federal District Court in Massachusetts where Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued a nationwide Temporary Restraining Order (TRO).
On August 24, 2026, the Supreme Court voted 6-3 to stay Talwani’s induction.
In its 10-page unsigned opinion, the majority said that it was too soon for courts to consider the states’ challenges because the order had to have been carried out, so DHS could proceed with the citizenship lists.
Of course, the two Obama appointed Justices and the Biden-appointed one dissented.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in a 23-page dissent, accused the majority of “[t]aking its eye off the ball” and thus “miss[ing] the Government’s actual objective: to secure our imprimatur for its effort to foment chaos ahead of the November elections.”
Jackson characterized the majority’s order as another chapter “in the Kafkaesque nightmare that our precedents have been steadily creating for certain plaintiffs who seek to bring election-related challenges.”
Hmmm… Such as President Trump in 2020?
FYI, “Kafkaesque” comes from Czech novelist Franz Kafka’s (1883–1924) books, such as The Trial and The Metamorphosis, in which characters feel trapped, lost, or powerless inside a massive system beyond their control.
Hmmm… Such as not knowing whether the voters were live citizens registered to vote in that state?
This saga continues in my next article.
Community Calendar:
Got a Santa Barbara event for our community calendar? Fenkner@sbcurrent.com
The Dems are going to fight to the death to preserve the scam of enabling fraudulent elections. Fighting voter ID and pushing fraud-ridden mail in voting is their main strategy to stay in power. Reclaiming fair elections is an overwhelmingly popularly idea, so the Dems need to cloak fighting it as racism and voter suppression.
Kalshi odds say she has never read any Kafka....I'd take that bet.