For several years, I’ve been debating with a close friend (who happens to be a pre-Trump Republican) about whether the Democrats habitually cheat in elections. I think they do. And bigly. But my interlocutor attributes their successful efforts to make elections less fraud-proof to a desire to be more open to marginalized or indifferent sectors of the electorate. Presumably, requiring proof of citizenship would frighten away segments of the population who don’t feel they have any stake in our society. In any case, he insists we shouldn’t confuse Democratic efforts to expand the electorate with a desire to commit fraud.

 Moreover, my friend contends that since very few cases of definitive fraud have been demonstrated from the 2020 presidential election (I would say suspiciously few, even in what would be a generally honest election), we should be very cautious about arousing distrust in our voting arrangements. Mail-in ballots do not really encourage cheating, as right-wing fanatics (like yours truly) would suggest. They just make it easier for those with busy schedules to perform their civic duty in a modern, technologically sophisticated world.

These arguments have some merit—particularly when they point out that there has been remarkably little evidence of the Democrats cheating, and that the onus of proof remains on those of us who believe that millions of ballots have been falsified and that this may even have altered the outcome of the 2020 presidential race. The problem with this argument is what I call the Meyer Lansky factor. For those who don’t know who this figure was, let me explain that Lansky came from a poor family of Russian Jewish immigrants but rose to wealth as an associate of Lucky Luciano and as a money launderer for the Mafia. He was also more fortunate than his clumsier colleagues, many of whom spent decades in the slammer. Meyer was never imprisoned for his highly probable misdeeds, except for a few weeks he spent in jail early in his career for gambling irregularities in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Should we therefore conclude that Lansky was a model citizen because he, unlike his associates, was more expert in hiding misdeeds? Wouldn’t we be justified in believing that the same odor of criminality attached to him as to those with whom he worked?

Particularly in the wake of the recent primary in California, when so many articles have appeared describing the oddities of the California voting system set up by the Democratic Party, I have no idea how continuing, massive voting fraud is not taking place in that state. The opportunities for cheating are so lavish. Ballots are sent in from all over creation to those who once registered to vote in California; requirements for voter identification are nonexistent; election results trickle in for months, and whenever there is a close race, Democratic candidates always manage to pull through. What’s not to like here for the state party bent on remaining in power by any means? But I suspect that even Communist dictators would have been more subtle in fixing elections.

The fact that Democrats, with ample aid from the media and permanent state, don’t get caught very often at their games doesn’t mean they run honest elections. It means that, like Meyer Lansky, they’re good at not getting caught. This is a critical distinction and one that may have triggered the Jan. 6, 2021, disturbance. Americans felt in their bones that the Democrats were cheating in that election, with their special COVID voting procedures and the arrangement for nighttime dumping of ballots in Democratic strongholds. Everything looked so suspicious that most Republicans and, not surprisingly, Donald Trump himself, believe the election results were tainted. This seems to be the case, although the overwhelmingly partisan Democratic “news services” continue to assure us there is not a shred of evidence for it.

Rather than trying to allay what seems to me a justified distrust, the Democrats have pushed harder to make elections look even more dishonest by refusing to limit them to authenticated American citizens. Then they serve up a tasteless travesty of an election in California, expecting the opposition party and the Trump administration to go along meekly.

But I don’t want to push the Meyer Lansky comparison too far. Unlike Democratic finaglers, this rags-to-riches son of impoverished immigrants was a well-mannered, self-effacing individual. He may have engaged in a dishonest vocation, but he wasn’t shameless. He thanked his lucky stars he hadn’t been caught for many years, even though his luck ran out toward the end of his life and the feds went after him for tax fraud.

 The Democrats, by contrast, combine shady dealings with boundless moral arrogance. Thus, they rant against Republicans for “suppressing the black vote,” which is the continuing charge of Hakeem Jeffries, the one-note House minority leader, who seems to equate proof of citizenship with Jim Crow laws.  Last week, we had Kristen Welker from Meet the Press hectoring President Trump for not providing her with definitive proof of irregularities in the 2020 election. (One doubts that any evidence would have convinced this engaged leftist interviewer.) Trump’s response to her taunt should have been, “You guys got away with that one. Let’s go on to other subjects!”