Breaking News: According to UC Irvine's latest poll of Orange County voters, 26 percent of those surveyed said they do not believe Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 presidential election with an additional 17 percent who say they're not sure.
Those numbers are so high, Jon Gould, dean of the UCI School of Social Ecology, who directed the poll says, "Distrust in our election system may very well convince some people not to participate in November." As someone who has spent the last 50 years trying to convince students, friends and colleagues to vote, I am very concerned.
I recognize questions about the integrity of our election process have been raised for years, but no one has made it the cornerstone of his or her national campaign like Donald Trump. What started out as a trickle of comments turned into a flood of criticism four years ago. I dare say the results of Trump's incessant questioning have seeped into local politics here in Orange County. How else can you explain the headlines about the MAGA movement in Huntington Beach for example?
Donald Trump currently is on trial for paying hush money to a porn star. That in itself is not a crime. Cooking his corporate books to make the payments look like fees paid to his lawyer is a state crime. Should Trump be found guilty of tax fraud -- for the expressed purpose of keeping a person quite in order to alter the outcome of the 2016 presidential election -- then he will have committed a federal crime as well. In the event that happens, I wonder how voters who participated in UCI's recent poll will react on election day?
If a city council candidate running in Laguna or anywhere else in Orange County paid someone hush money to keep quiet and then tried to disguise the amount paid as legal fees, I am confident local voters would not elect him or her to office. That said, in this day and age, I hope "confident" is not an over statement.
-DF
You don’t know Newport Beach very well. I am amazed at some of the things council members and candidates get away with.
If those who decide not to vote coincide with the 26+17% who believe the system is rigged (hence Joe is not really the president), then they are likely to have voted for #45. So it's really a good thing if they stay home. I'm more concerned about all the young anti-war voters not voting because Joe hasn't pulled the plug on funding Netanyahu's war. And please note that I didn't call it Israel's war, because it seems most Israelis don't want the war, either. They just want their family members home.