In recent days, James Comer, the Republican House Minority Leader in Kentucky, has made the extraordinary claim that President Biden’s election victory was due to ‘suppression’ of the votes of Republicans in key swing states. However, despite Comer presenting ‘evidence’ in the form of a statistical analysis of the voting results in key states such as Georgia, the claim does not deserve the benefit of the doubt.
Comer’s analysis claims to prove that there were more than enough potential Republican voters in the key swing states who were blocked from turning out in large enough numbers to affect the election outcome. While Comer’s claims may appear to be plausible on the surface, a closer look reveals that the numbers do not stand up to the scrutiny they need to for his sweeping assertion to be given any credence.
The first point to note is that the US elections in 2020 had record turnout levels among all demographics, but particularly among African-American, Hispanic, and young people who mostly tend to lean Democrat. It is impossible to prove that these groups were ‘suppressed’ when they already voted in record numbers.
Moreover, a closer examination of Comer’s analysis reveals that he is overly reliant on the raw voting numbers for his claims and does not take into account the actual voting pattern within each state. The fact that the majority of registered Republicans actually voted in the election (a considerably higher rate than registered Democrats) indicates that it is unlikely that a high level of suppression occurred.
Ultimately, it cannot be denied that the voting systems in every state could have been subject to fraud or irregularities that contributed to the result. However, based on the available evidence, the claims put forward by James Comer do not deserve the benefit of the doubt. They have not been backed up by adequate proof and the legal challenges so far have been unsuccessful. Therefore, it is only fair to conclude that Biden won the election due to his support from the people of America and not because of some so-called ‘suppression’ of voters by the GOP.
