Most Americans assume that our system of government could never fail, but the truth is that it is failing right in front of our eyes.  In order for our system of government to work, people need to be able to believe that their votes will count and that the outcomes of our elections will be fair.  For over 200 years, most Americans did have faith in the system, but now things are rapidly changing.  Here in 2020, we appear to be heading for a hotly contested result in the presidential election, and many on the losing side are inevitably going to believe that the election was stolen from them.  And day after day we just continue to see more examples that indicate the security of our elections is being compromised on a widespread basis.  Not too long ago, I wrote about the military ballots for Trump that had been discarded in a dumpster in Pennsylvania and the ballots that were discovered in a ditch in Wisconsin.  And now today I came across a report about how memory sticks that are “used to program Philadelphia’s voting machines” were stolen from a warehouse…

A laptop and several memory sticks used to program Philadelphia’s voting machines were stolen from a city warehouse in East Falls, officials confirmed Wednesday, setting off a scramble to investigate and to ensure the machines had not been compromised.

 

Though it remains unclear when the equipment was stolen, sources briefed on the investigation said the items vanished this week. The laptop belonged to an on-site employee for the company that supplies the machines. It and the USB drives were the only items believed to have been taken.

 

We will want to watch the results coming out of Philadelphia very carefully, because the winner of Pennsylvania is probably going to win the presidency.

In 2012, 100 percent of the vote went to Barack Obama in precinct after precinct in Philly, and it will be very interesting to see if a similar pattern emerges during this election.