It’s necessary to investigate and correct vote counting irregularities and ballot fraud in Michigan and other states with a high incidence because honest elections are the fundamental source of legitimacy of the United States government. Because that legitimacy only comes from the people, it would be a betrayal of who we are — a sort of national suicide — to allow massive vote-counting irregularities and ballot fraud in multiple states to stand.

After attempting but failing to remove Trump from office through the Mueller Commission’s alleged Russian-collusion investigation and Nancy Pelosi’s impeachment hearings, it should come as no surprise that Democrat Party operatives seized on the COVID crisis in Trump’s fourth year. They took advantage of the lockdowns and public fear and pushed specific actions to game the system to increase their delivery of votes leading up to Election Day on November 3. First they legitimized the wholesale distribution of ballots and mail-in balloting, and then they blanketed the swing states with armies of lawyers filing suits to challenge voter ID and signature verifications laws and to extend the deadlines for mail-in ballots, which was first approved by a Michigan appellate judge in September but then reversed in October by the Michigan Court of Appeals. The fact is that changing rules in these ways in Michigan and the other key swing states in the months leading up to Election Day created ambiguities that contributed to voting irregularities, such as filing fraudulent ballots from dead people still on the voter rolls, ballot harvesting, ballot dumps, and other fraud and poll-place shenanigans.

While many have justified taking extreme action to stop Trump because they don’t like his manner of talking and tweeting, the integrity of elections is far more important than political personalities, and certainly bigger than the presidency itself. Electoral integrity is the very bedrock of our constitutional republic and the democratic process.

With the mainstream media coverage of the Trump administration continuing to be 90% negative and state officials’ and lower courts’ inclination to take the course of denial rather than deal with the shame of widespread vote fraud, the way forward continues to be an uphill battle. With distrust, division, and corruption being so prevalent — particularly in the big cities of the contested states — as to nullify the seriousness of over 500 affidavits of vote fraud, computer-driven vote manipulation, and polling-place irregularities, the Supreme Court may be compelled to adjudicate. There are pending cases in federal district courts in Pennsylvania and Georgia that are likely to rise to the Supreme Court’s adjudication. With the wheels of justice turning toward the Supreme Court, state legislators and their electors in contested states should refrain from certifying the vote pending a SCOTUS ruling.

Few may realize it, but the genius of the Constitution provides a way forward in presidential elections should either the states’ failure to certify their vote or the Court’s ruling to call a new election or disqualify the certification of votes in contested states deny either candidate from achieving the necessary 270 Electoral College votes. In such unusual circumstances, Article II of the Constitution has a provision to put the election of the president in hands of the U.S. House of Representatives — the people’s house — with each state getting one vote. That vote being decided by the weighting of party representation in each state. As a result of the November 3 election, with 27 states now having more Republican than Democrat congressmen, and 20 states having more Democrat than Republican congressmen, and three states being evenly split, the presidential election would be called for Trump.

Even if it delays Inauguration Day, we must see this process through to identify and eliminate election and vote fraud problems, or we may never again have free and safe elections. We simply cannot remain a free people with a government that is of the people, by the people, and for the people if we fail to defend and uphold the Constitution and fail to restore integrity and trust to the electoral process.