Simple, letting cheaters get away with it is the same as destroying the system they are cheating within.

See you next… Again? Okay, so let’s break it down.

If you can guess which cup the pea is under I will give you two dollars. But if you guess wrong you will give me one dollar.

Gambling is a lousy way to invest, just so you know. Odds favor the house or the house wouldn’t be in business. But hey, if you guess right you get the two bucks, so why not? It’s only a dollar if you lose, right?

If you believe in that nonsense you are undermining yourself. But since you’re smarter than that, we’re just going to pretend that you are willing to play this stupid game.

Now let’s pretend you begin to suspect that I am cheating. You aren’t sure – after all, you did win a few times – but it just seems wrong.

Do you A) keep playing or B) walk away? If you answered A, let me give you the link for Gambler’s Anonymous. Everyone else quit. Why? Because there is no benefit to playing a game you cannot win but can lose money. The Reasonable Man, and anyone with a functional brain, will not continue something that is destructive to themselves. They also won’t continue doing something pointless.

Pretty much the same logic applies to elections. No one bothers to participate in rigged elections unless paid to do so. Not only will they not vote, they will stop bothering to keep themselves informed. Over time, they stop participating in the public square, unless it is as revolutionaries. Citizenship and its responsibilities become distant memories because the person’s vote doesn’t count.

Even the perception of cheating will undermine the entire electoral system. This is NOT the US’ first rodeo with election integrity. I think the count is probably in the thousands. No one likes this rodeo and it’s usually a pain in the backside to get all the poop out of the arena but America is pretty determined to keep her elections clean.

All that ‘government by the people’ stuff hinges on elections. Only with honest elections can the People guide their government. However imperfect, that compact between the government and the governed is absolutely essential to preserving the rights and freedoms Americans enjoy.

Electoral fraud undermines the United States herself. Yeah, yeah, I know – it’s just a ‘little’ cheating. It’s just an aberration. Just a minor problem. Election integrity is just fine. A few high profile, obvious and blatant cheats can’t do that much damage, right?

Let’s try this logic with your bed. It’s just a little fresh steaming horse poop. Just an outlier, Just a minor problem. You can still sleep in the bed with the poop. It can’t be that bad, right?

Yeah, that logic doesn’t work so well, does it?

Corruption is fresh poop. There is no desirable quantity in your bed or in your elections. A little cheating becomes a lot of cheating. It’s a straight down hill run to disaster.

That’s why what’s going on in Arizona is so important. The evidence is that there was egregious fraud and tampering within the gubernatorial election. First and foremost, claims of fraud and tampering must be proven in court. Once proven, the courts cannot be allowed to drag their feet so much that the corrupt election results are allowed to stand. There cannot be reward for corruption. That will only destroy the US from within.

It’s sad that Arizona is unusual in that the aggrieved candidate is actually putting up a fight. Both parties are bad about encouraging such candidates to just acquiesce. Just give up ‘for the greater good’, they are told, but that ‘greater good’ serves the party, not the nation.

No, there won’t be perfection. We will always have candidates and parties that try to win by foul means. Comes with human nature. But we don’t have to tolerate it nor should we.

Just because the horse had to poop doesn’t mean we have to step in it.