One of the most corrosive realities in contemporary American electoral politics isn’t polarization, misinformation, or even foreign interference. It is something more basic: a majority of Americans no longer trust the integrity of their elections.
This is not a fringe belief limited to one party or ideology. According to polling from Rasmussen Reports, ahead of the 2024 presidential election, 62 percent of likely voters were “concerned that cheating will affect the outcome of the 2024 election.”
This skepticism crosses party lines and has persisted over the years. The pattern is clear: whichever party loses a presidential election claims the winning party cheated.
Democrats insisted George W. Bush stole the 2000 election. Many believed he did so again in 2004.
The idea that Donald Trump colluded with Russia to “steal” the 2016 election became a conviction on the political left, supported for years by media, weaponized intelligence community lies, and congressional investigations.
Republicans, especially President Donald Trump, believe the 2020 election was compromised through mail-in ballots, procedural changes enacted without legislatures, ballot harvesting, delayed counting, and statistical anomalies that were never convincingly explained. And now, after 2024, many Democrats again claim that Trump cheated to regain the presidency.
This recurring cycle reveals an important point: the issue is no longer who wins, but whether Americans trust the legitimacy of the system itself. It’s not about any specific election, but about the electoral process as a whole.
Whether Donald Trump “probably” won in 2020 is a separate debate, one with strong feelings on both sides. But that debate isn’t the main point here. The real issue is that half the country sees every election loss as illegitimate, and nothing has been done to rebuild trust in the American election system.
Democracy cannot survive on blind faith alone. Trust must be earned through transparency, consistent rules, and procedures that make fraud difficult and detection easy.
Yet instead of reforming elections to restore public confidence, political leaders often respond to skepticism by dismissing it as dangerous, disloyal, or a “threat to democracy.”
That is backward. In a healthy republic, distrust in elections should lead to reform, not censorship, gaslighting, or moral condemnation.
Election procedures are important. Think about how American elections are now run. Voting can start weeks or even months before Election Day. Ballots are mailed en masse, harvested, cured, and counted long after polls close.
In some jurisdictions, results may take days or weeks to be revealed.
Congressional races sometimes change multiple times as new batches of ballots are “discovered” or counted.
Hellbound and Down 