Addendum to “Joe Biden has declared that the COVID pandemic is ‘over’”

Something that struck me not long after I wrote the aforementioned article is that there is another group of people currently with white knuckles over the President’s statement that the COVID pandemic is over. The first group to which I pointed was mainly health-care- and pharmaceutical-related. The other contingent I failed to mention is politicians. It seems so apparent now, I am disappointed that I at first passed over it.

Some are postulating that the purpose of the president’s proclamation is to promote positive polling for those pernicious politicians pertaining to whom the pundits are predicting a purge. While it is possible that bringing an end to the viral vicissitudes may result in improved survey results, there is another reason why those in elected office might prefer the emergency to continue: power.

For the past two-and-a-half-years, elected officials from city and county, to state, and to federal levels have taken advantage of every opportunity to seize more power. Nancy’s knuckles are white right now over concern that leadership of the house may be slipping through her grasp. Pelosi has already issued a memo stating that proxy voting in the House of Representatives would continue through November 10 due to the “coronavirus pandemic.” Beyond that, in 2020 officials of many states used the “emergency” as the basis for side-stepping their legislatures to modify state voting laws. Many states mass-distributed mail-in ballots and loosened mail-in voting eligibility requirements. Along with changes to the number of people permitted to use mail-in ballots, rules for tallying those ballots changed. For some, there was no true verification of validity. Some were allowed to be counted even if they arrived late. Unattended ballot boxes were setup around cities for people to drop off their “mail-in” ballots. Other changes to voting laws (some by the legislature, some not) included making online voter registration easier, allowing drive-through voting, and permitting vote harvesting. Ballotpedia has a fairly thorough list of all the changes made: https://ballotpedia.org/Changes_to_election_dates,_procedures,_and_administration_in_response_to_the_coronavirus_(COVID-19)_pandemic,_2020

The problem, then, for these officials is that, if there is no emergency, there is no need for modified voting rules; and if there is no need or justification for modified voting rules, it is more difficult to cheat. Make no mistake, while claims abound that “the 2020 election was the most secure in history,” and at that there was “no evidence of widespread voting fraud,” there were a multitude of irregularities that were simply never investigated officially. Most cases brought to the courts were dismissed (often under the claim that the plaintiff lacked “standing”), many without even going through the discovery phase. The departments you would expect to look into foul play refused to do so. Despite TIME Magazine even publishing an article admitting there was a “conspiracy” to “[save] the election” (https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/), anyone who questioned the legitimacy of said election was castigated.

I’m not here to say that the 2020 election was stolen or rigged - you can make up your own mind whether someone who campaigned mostly from his basement and could barely lure 100 people to a campaign rally received 81 million votes. What I am saying is, those in power do not want to lose that power, and the aberrations that occurred during that election stand to help keep those people in power, thus, they would not want to give up the ability to use the emergency declaration for cover to alter voting rules. They need the pandemic to continue - we don’t.