We’ve been warning about bulk-mail balloting for years. The lack of true authentication is an invitation for fraud, and Democrats have been the huge beneficiaries. Yet for that reason, Democrats are highly unlikely to roll any of that back. Political analyst Roger Kimball says that means Republicans better “become experts” at the process for themselves.

I have been thinking about the phrase “the fix was in.” What it means is that a certain result was predetermined. It carries with it a suggestion — but only, I think, a suggestion — of something, if not quite illicit, then at least not quite above board.

Why have I been thinking about that pregnant phrase? If you said “the midterm elections,” go to the head of the class.

Democrat wins in various races were almost surely thanks to mail-in voting, Kimball says.

What was the determinative fix in the 2022 midterm elections? Early, mostly mail-in, voting. It is perfectly legal. But it undermines a fair and open electoral process. Were I a Democrat, I might even say that it “threatens our democracy.” Why? Because it allows for the wholesale manipulation of the vote. It also dilutes the integrity of an election by transforming it from an event into a process.

I should add that “mail-in ballots” is an equivocal term. It can mean different things in different contexts and in different states. The practice is obviously open to more interference and manipulation than same-day voting is. So extra safeguards must be put in place and scrupulously followed if such interference and manipulation is to be avoided. Some states do this. Florida is a good example. Other states do not. Apparently, about 1.4 million people asked for mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania. Around the same number voted early by mail in Arizona, compared to just shy of half a million on Election Day. Were all such ballots carefully checked to ascertain the identity and eligibility of the person casting the vote?

I doubt it, but let’s leave that question to one side. The real issue is that the wholesale practice of early or mail-in voting makes a mockery of elections. If you say that an election is to be held on November 8, but millions of ballots are already docketed, if not actually counted, by the time November 8 rolls around, why bother to have Election Day at all? Why not have Election Week, or Election Month, or Election Quarter?

Kimball says mail-in voting has been “encouraged and abetted by Democrats in order to help influence the course of elections,” and that it “should be sharply curtailed, if not outlawed.” He also knows that’s unlikely to happen given how much Democrats benefit. Therefore, the only other path forward is for Republicans to get better at using it.

It behooves Republicans to become experts in organizing and deploying mail-in voting for their own candidates.

Otherwise, they may have to get used to losing.

Read the whole thing here.