Donald Grant, Minot

No one will forget the tragic and shocking events at our national capitol building on January 6th. Terrorists overran the thin security forces and attempted a coup of sorts, somehow trying to change the election results they deemed fraudulent. How can we move forward from this terrible day?

It’s time to pause, take a deep breath, and take a look at the facts, not hearsay, not conspiracy theories, but the facts. Our electoral system in the U.S. is decentralized, run not by the national government, but run by the county and state governments. There are over 3,000 counties in the U.S. and on election day over 100,000 hard-working dedicated (and underpaid) Americans manned these polling stations working well into the night, some even working for days afterward. Did these poll workers throughout the U.S. somehow subvert the vote, change it, delete some votes, manufacture other votes? Of course not!

Voting results from the various counties were sent to state capitals for consolidation and certification. Did these thousands of county and state officials throughout the U.S. somehow subvert the vote, change results, delete or manufacture votes? Of course not!

The Trump campaign filed 60 lawsuits in state and federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. This was the campaign’s opportunity to show “proof of fraud” in the election. How did that turn out? Every one of the lawsuits was dismissed due to lack of substance and facts. In a court of law, conspiracy theories and opinions are not facts, and hearsay is not evidence. No proof of fraud could be produced in any of the 60 cases. Did all these judges conspire to subvert the election? Of course not!

Enough! Enough! There was no “steal,” no fraud, no mass cheating. The election was close, but Bidden won fairly. It’s now time to move on, to heal our divided country, speak to each other civilly, respect others views, to disagree peacefully, and together take on a real enemy, COVID-19.