Nov. 3, 2020, Election Day, one of the most important days of the year in America. Even during a pandemic, Americans either cast their ballots days in advance or lined up on Election Day to cast their votes for the Democrat candidate Joe Biden and the incumbent president and Republican candidate Donald Trump or a third party vote. Having one of the biggest voter turnouts in years, it was expected that not all votes would be counted accurately on election night. That held true. The results weren’t announced till Saturday, Nov. 7, and with 80 million votes, Joe Biden won the election.

So… Joe Biden is predicted to win and the electors for the Electoral College meet on Dec. 14. Election over, right?

Apparently not.

President Trump, ever since the election was called not n favor of him, has been throwing a hissy fit and claiming voter fraud. Other Republicans in the Senate and House, in fear of retribution, also claim this, and of course, Trump’s  following have been yelling about this supposed “voter fraud.”

Firstly, what is voter fraud? Voter fraud is any “illegal interference with the process of an election.” Voter fraud is a serious issue and shouldn’t be taken lightly, but without any evidence, it means nothing. This then leads us into our country’s current situation with the current president screaming “voter fraud” like he’s crying wolf and suing states left and right. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet and go over each claim of voter fraud from Trump and his supporters:

“What about those sharpies on ballots?” Ballots were not disqualified for being filled out in sharpie. Factchecker.org debunks this and says that states counted every ballot, regardless of sharpie or not, and didn’t discriminate based on who the ballot was for.

“Dead people can’t vote!” Dead people were never voting. According to factchecker.org, it says that yes, some people may have died just before their ballots got received. Similar names have also caused this issue. Tucker Carlson, a Fox News host of his own show, called out a supposed dead man for voting… while yes, that man was dead for the past 14 years, it was his wife who was voting. Somehow, he didn’t see that and thus deceived others on this false claim.

“Wisconsin had more votes than registered voters!” This was claim quickly debunked. Wisconsin has same day voter registration where citizens can register to vote on Election Day. This claim sprung up from looking at the 2016 registered voter list, not the 2020. (https://www.factchecker.org/2020/11/viral-posts-misreport-data-on-registered-voters-in-wisconsin-/)

“But-but ballots that are mailed in are fraud.” Oh, and who told you that? Every election to this point hasn’t had an issue with absentee ballots and states with mail-in ballots don’t have issues with them either. (Mail-in ballot states, according to a study done by the Washington Post assisted by the nonprofit Electronic Registration Information Center, only had a 0.0025 percent of being fraudulent either by double-voting or by voting on behalf of dead people)

Those are just the more common voter fraud claims I’ve seen across the Internet and of course there are more.

To this, I rebut, what about other states Trump won? Why is voter fraud only in the states he lost? Also, what about the House and Senate? Were those not rigged? The House lot Democrat seats and a good amount of incumbent Republicans kept their seats in the Senate! How was only the president part of the ballot fraud, but nothing else? It was all on the same ballot!

Lawsuits keep piling in and getting thrown out, even by the Supreme Court, due to lack of evidence. Yet, still Trump is fighting. Now, Trump and 126 members of Congress (all Republicans), at the time of this is being written, are backing the state of Texas lawsuit to completely invalidate every single vote in the 4 battleground states (Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) and overturn Biden’s win. The exact states where Trump lost.

If that isn’t undemocratic and seditious, I don’t know what is! Undermining a democratic process that has been the backbone of this country for 244 years? All because one man can’t handle the fact he lost by 7 million votes! I honestly have no words.

As a teenager, why would I care about this election? I can’t even vote! Here’s the deal… this election was not  just about now. It’s about the future. Our decisions now effect what will happen then. Tis hysteria over voter fraud is absolute nonsense.

I care about the country and our future. I want to live in a country where the election results are respected. Even if you don’t like them , that doesn’t mean fraud. There will be another presidential election in four years and you can vote for your preferred candidate then. Have debates, criticize the new president, do all those things, it is your constitutional right as an American.

But please, stop making up lies when it comes to voting.

For now, the election is over and these claims need to stop. We need to move on.