Boss Tweed may have said it best: “As long as I count the votes, what are you going to do about it?”

Tweed’s comment, of course, goes directly to the cornerstone of a healthy republic: the citizenry’s faith in free and fair elections. Absent that fundamental guarantee — that only honest votes will be counted — a nation’s elected leaders lack legitimacy and moral authority, and the nation itself lacks the consent of its people. And this is what separates the United States from the tyrannical regimes and the banana republics.

This electoral season, however, will see that guarantee tested to its fullest. In their zeal to defeat Donald Trump in November, and in their utter refusal to let a good crisis go to waste, Democrats at the national and state levels are using the China Virus as an excuse to promote and enact a nationwide vote-by-mail system.

One of the battlegrounds for this push is Michigan, a state whose 16 electoral votes went to Trump by a razor-thin margin in 2016. Yesterday, Trump took aim at the state’s secretary of state, Democrat Jocelyn Benson, whose office has sent 7.7 million absentee ballot applications to Michigan voters. As the president noted, “This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!”

We’re not yet sure of the legal ramifications of Benson’s decision, but the action of the former Wayne State University Law School dean no doubt pleases Michigan Governor and possible Joe Biden running mate Gretchen Whitmer, whose infringements upon the liberty of the people we noted last month.

Another state currently under siege from the absentee-ballot activists is Texas, where a U.S. district judge has ruled that all the state’s residents must have access to vote by mail. We know what you’re saying: Texas is a reliably red state. But is it? A buffoon like Beto O'Rourke came too close for comfort in the Senate race with Ted Cruz there two years ago. And with judicial activism as alive in Texas as anywhere else, the Lone Star State’s must-have haul of 38 electoral votes may soon be up for grabs. If Republicans lose Texas, it’ll be a long time before they see the White House again.

Absentee voting, of course, exists in all 50 states, and for good reason. It’s for the elderly and the disabled, and for those serving in the military or currently out of state or overseas. But it was never intended to replace the age-old practice of voting in-person and within one’s community, and that too is for good reason: because it introduces serious vulnerabilities into the electoral system.

In short, the easier it is to vote, the easier it is to defraud the voting process.

Those on the Left continue to reflexively reject the notion that voter fraud even exists. But it does exist, and it’s been well documented. And remember: Voter fraud doesn’t have to be widespread to make a difference. As John Fund brilliantly pointed out back in 2014, a few fraudulent votes in a tightly contested election can ultimately saddle an entire nation with … ObamaCare.

Think about your spiraling healthcare premiums the next time someone tells you that voter fraud isn’t a thing and that mail-in ballots are no big deal.