- Locked and loaded - 14th October 2026
- Speakeasy - 14th October 2026
- Crime DOESN’T pay… - 13th October 2026
After describing his early years in journalism during a 43-year career, the importance of experience in the job, and stressing the centrality of the ‘calls’ to emergency services even during holiday periods, our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, looks on with incredulity as security measures are put in place for next month’s voting in the United States of America (USA) ‘mid-terms’, to protect the process FROM ITS OWN GOVERNMENT!
I totally understand making the voting process secure, but protecting it from YOUR OWN GOVERNMENT seems bizarre!
Perhaps this is to do with the fact that Donald Trump never accepted the result of the last but one Presidential election which he lost.
After his defeat by Joe Biden, Mr Trump often made vocal yet baseless allegations following Election Day.
In a speech at the White House, he appeared particularly focused on ballots that were counted late into the evening, even though votes being counted late into the night is typical.
“This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election”, he declared.
It’s possible this is also connected to the riot at the United States of America (USA) Capitol which ensued on January 6 2021, when supporters of Mr Trump stormed Congress in a bid to thwart the certification of Mr Biden’s election victory.
Election administrators increasingly view FBI agents as a threat, according to Jonathan Miller of Public Rights Project (PRP), a litigation group that represents local governments.
Earlier this year the Department of Justice (DoJ) said it would prosecute officials who let non-citizens vote.
Such voter fraud is extremely rare, but the spectre of non-citizen voting propels the myth of election theft, and is the reason that MAGA activists say they want immigration enforcement at the polls.
Their presence would be illegal: federal law prohibits US Government officials from sending armed agents to precincts.
On behalf of the city of Denver, PRP has sued the Department of Homeland Security (DoHS), seeking to pre-empt anything like that on election day.
The Trump administration says it has no intention of patrolling precincts, but that it may take targeted action, such as serving warrants against anyone suspected of being an illegal immigrant.
Election experts’ nightmare scenario is that Mr Trump might try to seize voting equipment or ballots.
That would break the ‘chain of custody’, the controls that set out who can handle ballots and where they go, ensuring all are accounted for.
Losing custody would make it hard to know whether ballots had been manipulated.
“I would feel very uncomfortable about validating those ballots”, says Stephen Richer, a former recorder in Arizona’s Maricopa County. “Then you start going down the dark road of, like, do you have to call a new election?”.
There are reasons to be worried about possible US Government interference.
In January the FBI raided an election office in Fulton County, Georgia, and carted away material from 2020.
Then in March, Chad Bianco, a Republican sheriff in Riverside, California, seized ballots that had been cast in a statewide referendum last year.
Both the FBI and Mr Bianco cited misinformation in their requests for warrants.
So watch out election officials.
You not only have to protect the democratic process from people like me (many years ago, I walked into a polling booth near Bridgend to find a councillor I was doing a story about, but was told in no uncertain terms to get out or voting might be disrupted), but also from US Government agents…
Some of the political stories Phil has covered over the years, as he was gripped by the rare neurological condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now!
Tomorrow – he looks at a new history of the pen, which has always been used in traditional reporter methods.
