Dear Editor,
As the upcoming election nears, I feel compelled to write. There are conspiracy theorists who are, once again, attacking our election process both in Chaffee County and the state of Colorado. Until the notion that “elections are rigged unless the Republicans win” was floated and blindly accepted by followers three to four years ago, Colorado’s election process and in particular, Chaffee County’s process is highly regarded as the Gold Standard, and the template for our entire country for how elections should be run.
There is a small but vocal minority group who simply will not stop the negative attacks, and who refuse to deal with facts, data, science, or any other compelling information besides propaganda on Facebook. In addition to the negativity, election staff members are threatened, called names, and stressed by the lies being perpetuated and with trying to do their jobs under the need for heightened security both at their job and off. This is un-American at every level.
Chaffee’s elected County Clerk was previously selected by her peers to lead the state’s county clerk association, the overwhelming majority of whom are registered Republicans (38 out of 63 counties; 18 Democrats and 7 Unaffiliated; one county clerk is appointed). Lori Mitchell was nominated by a Republican county clerk and was elected by her peers because of her crystal-clear standard of integrity and ethics. Nothing has changed since she held that office, and it is true of her staff as well; she would stand for nothing less.
The lies and the conspiracy theories must stop. Factually, at every level of the election process, from local leaders through states’ leaders, up to and through the White House’s cybersecurity experts under Donald Trump, and on to the U.S. Supreme Court: there was no hint of even minor election fraud, and the election had the highest level of integrity of any in history.
Please, be vocal about standing up for what is right and good. Use your common sense as you vote in the upcoming election. Talk to others about honesty and data and facts. Always remember that Facebook (and the other sites) are social media, not business media, not court and law media, but social media. Some people have seemingly lost sight of that fact. My worst fears are we as a society are teetering on the edge of doom.
Wendy Hall
Buena Vista
I agree. We have a serious problem here in Chaffee and Salida when otherwise rational GOP members have decided that masks are unnecessary and their leaders are literally killing them with lies and counting on their ignorance and false sense of freedom to incite them to stupidity. Out of around dozen employees in my partner’s public facing retail job only 2 wear masks and are vaccinated. 2 others manage to wear their Jesus shirts but refuse masks thinking their Jesus shirts will protect them somehow while they violate the rules of society. The rest either don’t care or are too vain. There are 3 people sick missing work for lengthy periods of time and all of the proclaim they do not have COVID with no tests. They still wear no masks. They never quarantine or isolate or even wait to report back to work. They still proclaim they know that masks don’t filter out the virus and that those wanting mandates and the standard vaccine requirements should be eliminated from the earth because – ‘just be nice’. I am afraid there is no hope. These people are too stubborn, ignorant and selfish and too excited by the opportunity to inflict harm on those who do things for the good of our community to ever do anything for the good of this country or anyone else. They still even after Their rabid ruler proclaimed that they will not vote and that they should not cooperate with mask and vaccination rules intended for their own good and the good of society, support the criminal which is what he was, is and always will be. The only thing that will allow us to fight off COVID is mandates because our community lacks the education to make proper decisions and the sense of duty required for society. The only thing that will stop the anarchy is the elimination of the shadow leader. We have one president at a time in this country. The loser and his followers deserve to be prosecuted for their actions against this country. Aside from them all going to TX to secede, the only way to deal with them is to positively reward vaccinated only with employment. Having witnessed my partner’s place of employment with former law enforcement and fire dept employees as well as so-called Evangelical Christians all defying the rules of society and church to do their own will, I am certain that we’re doomed. When the UK was first planning to invite Trump for a visit I warned them that he attracts violent extremists and he incites them to do harm and that they should not allow him because it was a security threat to their country. He still is.
While I completely agree with the writer of the letter to the editor, I must add that our issues run far deeper than the disinformation and conspiracy theories being spread on social media. I am firmly of the opinion that we are still in the midst of the insurrection that began on January 6, 2021 at our nation’s capital. We are experiencing a concerted effort to undermine our democracy as we know it by the Gop.
There is video evidence of lawyers in meetings with political action committees detailing their plans surrounding their “voter integrity legislation” which actually gives partisan legislator’s the authority to change the ourcome of an election that doesn’t go their way!
The outbursts we see in school board meetings are planned and there is documented proof that the Gop has recruited and encouraged their members to become militant and strike out against vaccines and masks in an effort to create the chaos we now have. They are forcing board members out of their jobs in an effort to overtake those positions themselves.
And finally they are writing laws like the laws in Texas that are meant to take away a woman’s right to choose and to eliminate teaching the truth of our history to our children.
This is a continuation of the insurrection and is not merely an anomaly that will pass if we only wake up to the conspiracy theories being spread on social media. We have passed that a long time ago. We must open our eyes to the fact that the other half of our political structure in this country has become corrupted and will do anything to win. Including taking up arms against their own.