Aug 18, 2022 3 min read

In his Aug. 10 essay, “We Heard You, Pennsylvania,” my state senator, Devlin Robinson, asserts that voters distrust our election process, hence the reason that he is supporting measures to “restore trust” in the system.

The senator is correct in recognizing a widespread concern about election integrity; however, he conveniently fails to cite the reason for it. It is “the big lie” put forth again and again by former president Donald Trump, who insists with no basis and no proof that he was the rightful winner of the 2020 election. Millions of his followers have been duped into believing him.

The senator will not ever bring it up, but Trump relied on every possible scheme in an effort to do what no other U.S. president had ever done: to refuse to facilitate the peaceful transfer of power. When all of his other plots had failed, he summoned a mob of tens of thousands to come to Washington, D.C., for what he promised would be a “wild” event. Was it ever. The ginned-up mob marched to and attacked the U.S. Capitol and its inhabitants on our modern day of infamy, Jan. 6, 2021, a brutal assault that ultimately claimed the lives of nine people, inflicted millions of dollars of damage, and terrorized most, if not all individuals who were unfortunate enough to be present on that fateful day. Even Trump’s own ever-loyal vice president had a close call with death at the hands of the rioters because he did what he was legally required to do: to certify that Joe Biden was the duly-elected president.

Like other state Republicans, Sen. Robinson tells us that “it’s our obligation to address this issue now.” No, it isn’t. If constituents came to him with another lie, say an assertion that the Earth is flat, I doubt that he would feel an obligation to investigate. The honorable path would be to brush aside those who continue to attempt to rewrite history: to tell the concerned constituents that no evidence of fraud has been found that would have changed the result of the 2020 election and that although he and they do not like it, Joe Biden is the duly-elected president.

By continuing to entertain those who dabble in conspiracy theories and lies, Sen. Robinson and others serve to diminish faith in our system of elections, something that did not ever occur in our history until the Trump presidency took place.

Oren Spiegler

Peters Township