Yesterday President Donald J. Trump implemented a sweeping regime of reciprocal and baseline tariffs with all America’s trading partners. Or rather, with the countries who have willingly sold America many more goods and services than they have bought, and in the process racked up an untold amount of “receivables.” When a seller lets you rack up a high tab and never duns you, you must ask why. Donald Trump said America will stop running up the tab. That has “free trade” sophists of all stripes crying “Foul!” Now is another reason to ask why, and to rebut the most common free-trade arguments.

What Trump has done on tariffs

Yesterday Donald Trump proclaimed “Liberation Day” – liberation, that is, from going ever deeper into trade debt. He announced a ten-percent baseline tariff with all trading partners, beginning this Saturday (April 5). Furthermore, he imposed “reciprocal tariffs” on countries who charge greater than ten percent.

Not one country on earth, other than the United States today, charges less than a ten percent baseline tariff. To show this, Trump posted to Truth Social a four-part table, in image form, showing:

1. Tariffs charged to the USA, and

2. New baseline and “discounted reciprocal” tariffs the USA will now start charging.

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114270396482753269

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114270397111664712

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114270397827085442

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114270398531479278

Again, every country charges a baseline tariff of ten percent, at least. Israel, at the time Trump made his posters, charged a 33 percent total tariff. The highest tariffs are for sales into the former French Indochina, especially Cambodia, which charges the highest tariffs. The Trump tariffs are ten percent, or half the total tariff any given country charges, whichever is higher. (Trump will charge Canada the baseline tariff only, regardless of reciprocal tariffs. Already Doug Ford, Prime Minister of Ontario Province, announced his proposal to eliminate all tariffs on both sides. But he lacks the authority to promise that.)

Rollbacks, etc.

Before day’s end, several countries had already announced rollbacks of their tariffs, in direct response or anticipation. Israel specifically announced cancellation of any remaining tariffs on U.S. imports. India has already begun negotiating a new regime to reduce their current tariffs. Switzerland has now eliminated tariffs on 99 percent of U.S. goods.

But the U.S. Senate seems to have broken with the Trump administration regarding the charging of any tariffs to Canada. The Senate passed a resolution in opposition to the tariffs – and four Republicans joined all Democrats to support that resolution. They are Senators:

• Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.),

• Rand Paul (R-Ky.),

• Susan Collins (R-Maine), and

• Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) proposed the resolution, which no one expects to pass the House. Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) did not vote on the resolution; why he missed that vote is unclear.

McConnell, Collins, and Murkowski all have reputations as spiteful opponents of Trump and everything he does or stands for. But Rand Paul, unlike the other three, has some principled grounds for opposition, however misguided. Like all libertarians, he believes that tariffs are inherently inimical to human liberty. Furthermore, if one country imposes a tariff on another, it does nothing except to deny purchase opportunities to its own citizens, subjects, or lawful residents. Libertarians simply do not recognize any national economic or even strategic interest. “Unilateral economic disarmament” has always been the libertarian by-word regarding international trade.

Trump offers an explanation

In announcing his new tariffs, Trump offered an explanation that went back to the first century of American history. (Source: Fox News.) From the Inauguration of President George Washington to the first year of Woodrow Wilson, tariffs financed the federal government.

From 1789 to 1913, we were a tariff-backed nation. And the United States was proportionately the wealthiest it has ever been. So wealthy, in fact, that in the 1880s they established a commission to decide what they were going to do with the vast sums of money they were collecting. We were collecting so much money so fast, we didn’t know what to do with it. Isn’t that a nice problem to have?

But in 1910, a group of wealthy bankers met at Jekyll Island, which was the Martha’s Vineyard of its day. This claque invented the Federal Reserve Banking System. Since then, Americans have used debt, not precious metals, to settle their own debt. Also in that year, the States ratified (maybe) Amendment XVI – the income tax.

In his announcement, Trump expanded on his notion of “liberation” from a one-sided trade regime:

American steel workers, auto workers, farmers and skilled craftsmen – [of which] we have a lot … here with us today, [have] really suffered, gravely. They watched in anguish as foreign leaders have stolen our jobs, foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories, and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once-beautiful American dream. We had an American dream that you don't hear so much about. You did four years ago, and you are now. But you don't too often.

Now it’s our turn to prosper, and in so doing, use trillions and trillions of dollars to reduce our taxes and pay down our national debt. And it will all happen very quickly. With today’s action, we are finally going to be able to make America great again, greater than ever before. Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country, and you see it happening already. We will supercharge our domestic industrial base.

Trump further explained how he calculates the total tariff burden. It includes not only direct monetary tariffs but also regulatory and other barriers to market entry.

For decades, the United States slashed trade barriers on other countries, while those nations placed massive tariffs on our products and created outrageous non-monetary barriers to decimate our industries. And in many cases, the non-monetary barriers were worse than the monetary ones. They manipulated their currencies, subsidized their exports, stole our intellectual property, imposed exorbitant taxes to disadvantage our products, adopted unfair rules and technical standards, and created filthy pollution havens.

That last touches on a supreme irony of the tariff debate. For decades, the same Democrats who now complain about the tariffs, complained about other countries’ inattention to the natural environment, as well as the slave wages most employers in these countries paid their labor force. “Filthy pollution havens” doesn’t half say it in many cases.

Finally Trump reminded everyone of the simple way to avoid tariffs: build manufacturing capacity in America. Elon Musk’s Tesla does just that: builds factories in, or close to, the markets into which they wish to sell.

The case for tariffs

Aside from Sen. Paul, Erick-Woods Erickson makes the typical case for “free trade.” He starts with the observation that the Standard and Poor’s 500 index lost nine percent of its valuation from late February to the present. That could reflect the beginnings of Trump’s aggressive trade policy – but Erickson does not substantiate that. Besides, Trump announced his new policies after the stock markets closed.

Then he asserts without warrant that:

A trade deficit is … not actually a bad thing, and more often than not, countries running trade deficits are those that are wealthier and healthier economically.

He cites Vietnam as an example. Labor and production costs in Vietnam are lower, he says, because the country is poor. So making things “over there” is cheaper. Therefore, all other things being equal, Americans might prefer to buy cheaper goods.

But many of those same Americans are out of jobs because someone is buying clothing and other goods from Vietnam. How are Americans supposed to be able to afford anything if they can’t work?

Nor is Vietnam the only example. In fact, America has a net trade deficit with all the rest of the world. An individual who “runs a trade deficit” with everyone else in the economy, is a spendthrift, or a deadbeat. If his surpluses with some do not balance his deficits with others, he is spending money. Such accounting applies equally to nation-states as to individuals. Any suggestion to the contrary, constitutes magical thinking – or a pack of lies.

Finally, if you doubt the existence of non-tariff barriers, the U.S. Trade Representative dropped an eleven-post thread explaining them.

https://x.com/USTradeRep/status/1907569779503689792

https://x.com/USTradeRep/status/1907569781764464834

https://x.com/USTradeRep/status/1907569783312155084

https://x.com/USTradeRep/status/1907569785074016595

https://x.com/USTradeRep/status/1907569786839617560

https://x.com/USTradeRep/status/1907569788404007154

https://x.com/USTradeRep/status/1907569789997908041

https://x.com/USTradeRep/status/1907569791633858606

https://x.com/USTradeRep/status/1907569793353351416

https://x.com/USTradeRep/status/1907569795085594845

https://x.com/USTradeRep/status/1907569796528365867

Rebuttals to the case against tariffs

Erickson tries in vain to make a case against the Trump policy. To begin with:

We are told an American business can now and should build a manufacturing base in the United States. However, these businesses do not know how long the tariffs will last, and, in the worst-case scenario, they could end in four years with a new president. So do you think they want to invest the capital in new factories with higher labor costs that won’t be finalized for more than four years in the United States when the tariffs could go away within four years?

What prospect have the Democrats to take back the White House in four years?

Never underestimate the predilections of the winning political party fixing the problems of the losing political party. Trump’s tariffs have given the Democrats an economic message that silences their cultural activists and elevates their economic pragmatists.

Oh, really? Last CNAV heard, their cultural activists are still screaming bloody murder. Susan Crawford won her Justicial election in Wisconsin by campaigning as The Abortion Justice. Democrats are still

the party of illegal aliens, … murderers[, violators of women,] and gang members in [law-abiding Americans’] communities.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)

If Erick-Woods Erickson seriously expects the Democrats to stop advocating for illegal aliens, he should lower his expectations. Those aliens are how they stole seats in the House from red States and hope to flip those red States.

Every single developed nation on planet earth has a baseline tariff of less than 10%, and most of those nations, contrary to what you might believe, exempt the United States from paying tariffs due to trade agreements Trump just scuttled.

That’s a lie, as Donald Trump demonstrated with his posters.

Israel not only has a free trade agreement with the United States, which means virtually every American good has no tariff, but it also scrapped the few remaining tariffs with the United States. Nonetheless, it will be hit with a 17% tariff, and some Trump officials, on background this afternoon, slandered the Israelis as intellectual property thieves to justify the tariffs.

That’s what negotiations are for. CNAV will not comment on an accusation that appears only in Mr. Erickson’s article.

Essentially, they took a country's trade deficit with us as a numerator in an equation with the denominator being that nation’s exports to the United States, then multiplied by 100.

That’s another lie. Trump clearly outlined the basis of his calculations, and that is not it.

Then there is Australia. We run a trade surplus with Australia because Australia does not have a massive manufacturing base but is very wealthy, so it can afford American imports. Nonetheless, Trump is imposing a 10% tariff on Australian imports, claiming Australia, which has a free trade agreement with us, imposes a tariff on us. That is not true.

Where are your links, Mr. Erickson? And that last accusation is very rich coming from a columnist who has told two lies already.

Many American manufacturers moved their businesses to places like Vietnam, which are actually not pro-China. Now, Trump is smacking these countries, Taiwan included, with steep, steep tariffs. In addition to hurting those economies, he risks driving many of them towards China.

Mr. Erickson knows better than that. Those manufacturers have an obvious alternative: come back home. In fact, Taiwan Semiconductor has already announced plans to build new plant in the United States.

Roughly 50% of the vehicles sold in this country under $40,000.00 are imports, and that, too, will hit the working class.

All in good time. We will rebuild our manufacturing base. Ask the President of the United Auto Workers’ Union.

Worse, this will most likely lead to a recession.

No, it won’t. Not when Americans get back the jobs the free-trade sophists gave away.

Summing up

In sum, President Trump makes an ironclad case for his economic nationalism in the form of tariffs. The case against them begins with magical thinking and continues with outright lying and dissembling.

America will now stop being the spendthrift and deadbeat nation in the world. So the elites, who wanted all along to take America down with a big delayed dun, will have to find another way.

Link to:

The article:

https://cnav.news/2025/04/03/news/tariffs-trade-taxes/

Video:

Tariff announcement, reactions, and repercussions:

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/04/trump-unleashes-10-baseline-tariff-all-u-s/

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/04/winning-trumps-reciprocal-tariffs-trigger-global-response-multiple/

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-finmin-seeks-immediate-end-remaining-tariffs-us-imports-2025-04-01/

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/india-us-trade-deal-modi-government-eyes-tariff-cuts-on-more-than-half-of-us-imports-worth-23-billion-says-report/articleshow/119473879.cms

https://www.reuters.com/world/swiss-minister-stresses-countrys-contribution-us-avoid-trump-tariffs-2025-03-23/

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/04/breaking-senate-votes-sabotage-president-trumps-canadian-tariff/

Trump’s Truths (posters of other countries’ tariffs):

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114270396482753269

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114270397111664712

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114270397827085442

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114270398531479278

Trump’s explanation:

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-touts-return-american-dream-historic-tariff-announcement

U.S. Trade Representative’s thread:

https://x.com/USTradeRep/status/1907569779503689792

https://x.com/USTradeRep/status/1907569781764464834

https://x.com/USTradeRep/status/1907569783312155084

https://x.com/USTradeRep/status/1907569785074016595

https://x.com/USTradeRep/status/1907569786839617560

https://x.com/USTradeRep/status/1907569788404007154

https://x.com/USTradeRep/status/1907569789997908041

https://x.com/USTradeRep/status/1907569791633858606

https://x.com/USTradeRep/status/1907569793353351416

https://x.com/USTradeRep/status/1907569795085594845

https://x.com/USTradeRep/status/1907569796528365867

Declarations of Truth:

https://x.com/DecTruth

Declarations of Truth Locals Community:

https://declarationsoftruth.locals.com/

Conservative News and Views:

https://cnav.news/

Clixnet Media

https://clixnet.com/

Yesterday came an unusual springtime election day, with special elections in Florida and Wisconsin. Wisconsin’s elections featured an off-year Supreme Court race and a Constitutional amendment requiring voter ID. Florida’s special elections, to fill vacancies in House Districts 1 and 6, returned Republicans by decisive margins. But the Wisconsin election results were mixed – leading some to suspect fraud, albeit an incomplete fraud campaign. The actual numbers do suggest that an investigation is in order. But the cause could be the usual Republican vulnerability in special elections.

Actual results of the special elections

Florida held special elections to replace Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-1st) and Mike Waltz (R-6th). Gaetz resigned abruptly after President Donald Trump nominated him to be Attorney General. (He had to withdraw his nomination, and is now a One America News Network anchor.) Mike Waltz, of course, is now the National Security Adviser to the President.

Jimmy Patronis, Chief Financial Officer for Florida, won in the First District, and Randy Fine won in the Sixth District. Both candidates faced Democratic opponents who outspent them – in fact Josh Weil outspent Randy Fine 9-1. Nevertheless each man won his seat with 57 percent of the vote.

The House of Representatives balance of power now moves to 220-213, with two more vacancies to fill. Both are in Democratic districts, after their respective incumbents died recently.

Congratulations Randy, a great WIN against a massive CASH AVALANCHE.
DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT.

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114265353051503359

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114265559182115048

Wisconsin, again, had mixed results. A Constitutional amendment making voter ID a Constitutional requirement in elections passed, 63 percent to 37 percent.

VOTER I.D. JUST APPROVED IN WISCONSIN ELECTION. Democrats fought hard against this, presumably so they can CHEAT. This is a BIG WIN FOR REPUBLICANS, MAYBE THE BIGGEST WIN OF THE NIGHT. IT SHOULD ALLOW US TO WIN WISCONSIN, LIKE I JUST DID IN THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, FOR MANY YEARS TO COME!

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114265988202750791

But liberal Judge Susan Crawford defeated her conservative opponent, Brad Schimel, 55 percent to 45 percent. The victory of Susan Crawford leaves the 4-3 conservative-equitarian balance unchanged. Crawford will replace Ann Walsh Bradley, an equitarian who declined to seek another term. (An equitarian is a trial judge who abuses his/her equity powers, or an appellate judge who assumes equity powers the court does not have.)

More numbers from the Wisconsin elections

Decision Desk has current total votes from the elections in Wisconsin. The two most important of these are the Supreme Court race and “Issue 1,” the voter ID public question.

Total votes, and proportions, in that race and public question, are:

State Supreme Court

Issue 1:

Thus 76,148 fewer voters voted in the public-question election than in the Supreme Court race.

The county-by-county “carry map” reflects an urban-rural divide. Even so, “No” on the public question won only in Dane County (seated in Madison) and Milwaukee County. Crawford is a “Favorite Daughter” of Dane County, but won in many more counties than these two. In fact, in many counties, twice as many people voted in the Supreme Court race as in the public question. Likewise, how did Susan Crawford carry Brown County (seated in Green Bay), while Issue 1 also carried the night?

The Undervote Conundrum

These results reflect a significant undervote in the Wisconsin election. Furthermore, that undervote distributes itself across all counties. In election parlance, an undervote is a ballot, or lot of ballots, with votes in only some, not all, races. Typically the top of the ticket gets all the attention. Voters vote at the top and ignore the races or public questions further down.

That demonstrably happened in the Election of 2020. Either:

• Democratic voters weren’t paying attention, especially in Florida where many Democrats lost their House seats, or:

• Those engaged in “stuffing the ballot box” prepared undervoted ballots and neglected those House races. (Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., then Speaker of the House, must have been ready to strangle someone.)

Yesterday one of those two things happened again. But this time the error could not have been more egregious. Susan Crawford has made no secret of itching to assert her phantom equity powers and rule voter ID unconstitutional. But she will not have power to do that, because voters who did pay attention to Issue 1, voted Yes.

But undervoting alone cannot explain Crawford’s victory. After all, Yes received more votes than Crawford did, and No received the fewest votes of all. Did some voters actually vote for Crawford and vote Yes on Issue 1? That strains credulity.

Other election irregularities

In fact the Wisconsin elections were fraught with another irregularity. Precincts in “multiple counties,” including Milwaukee, ran out of ballots. That includes seven precincts in Milwaukee County alone. As an Officer of Election, your editor sees no excuse for that. Our registrar always supplies enough ballots to cover a hypothetical one hundred percent turnout in any election.

At University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, the Chairman of the English Department confronted several College Republicans members at their voter-information table. He shouted that they were too close to the on-campus polling place. They weren’t, and retorted that they were well over 100 feet away. That didn’t placate the chairman, who shouted, “The time for this is over” – and then overturned the table. Police cited that professor for disorderly conduct, and he posted $295 bond and must appear in court on May 7. State of Wisconsin v. Jose Felipe Alvergue, case no. 2025FO000479.

Nevertheless, Charlie Kirk, head of Turning Point USA, reminded his fellow conservatives of a stark reality:

We did a lot in Wisconsin, but we fell short. We must realize and appreciate that we are the LOW PROP party now. The party has been remade. Special elections and off-cycle elections will continue to be a problem without a change of strategy.

We are the party of welders, waiters, and plumbers. We are the party of people who work with their hands, who shower before and after work. Politics is an afterthought for many of our supporters. They have common sense and American values, but they are voters who must be CHASED.

Democrats have become the college indoctrinated, institutionalized, and government dependent HIGH PROP party. They live for politics. It is their religion.

You may hate Donald Trump, but he resurrected a dead GOP back to life. Voters who weren't on anyone's data rolls came out of the woodwork to vote for Donald Trump.

Our movement must begin to fully fund the infrastructure to match the Democrat machine. Our ideas are better. They're actually popular. But we need to match like for like. We need to out organize Democrats. We need to match their fundraising advantage.

Let Wisconsin be a wakeup call. Let it be a call to return to the frontlines. We won in November, but to save the Republican we must string together multiple victories and that starts in 2026.

https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1907251439552053249

Simple inattention and apathy is a much larger problem than fraud. Too many people vote Yes on a public question without reading it. Yesterday that helped those who care about election integrity. But many more who voted for Crawford, didn’t vote on Issue 1. Or if someone stuffed ballot boxes, they ignored the Issue that will now make their “trade” more difficult.

But at least 1.1 million fewer people voted in Wisconsin yesterday, than voted in 2024. That, perhaps, is the real problem.

Link to:

The article:

https://cnav.news/2025/04/02/news/elections-spring-mixed-results/

Video:

Trump’s Truths after the Florida races and Wisconsin public question:

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114265353051503359

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114265559182115048

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114265988202750791

Decision Desk links to Wisconsin results:

https://ddhq.io/results/2025/General/Wisconsin/

https://ddhq.io/results/2025/General/races/wisconsin-question-1-require-voter-photo-id-amendment-all-parties-ballot-question

Wisconsin v. Alvergue:

https://wcca.wicourts.gov/caseDetail.html?caseNo=2025FO000479&countyNo=18&mode=details

Charlie Kirk on the mixed result in Wisconsin:

https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1907251439552053249

Declarations of Truth:

https://x.com/DecTruth

Declarations of Truth Locals Community:

https://declarationsoftruth.locals.com/

Conservative News and Views:

https://cnav.news/

Clixnet Media

https://clixnet.com/

Election integrity is back in the news this week, as even Elon Musk’s DOGE has produced relevant findings. A legislative leader in Michigan, and Missouri’s new top election official, both have announced action to make elections trustworthy again. So a more thorough review, both of the motives of the left in undermining election integrity and of how to run a trustworthy election quickly and efficiently, are in order.

Qualifications to review election integrity, both current status and reform plans

Your editor, once again, is an Officer of Election with nearly four years’ experience, including a full year as Chief. He knows how elections currently run, and what makes them vulnerable. Moreover he has received insights from several election integrity activists who have organized various kinds of protests of present systems.

One such activist – who shall remain nameless – urged voters to mutilate their ballots so that no scanner-tabulator could read them – but a human being could. The Attorney General directly threatened to prosecute him for that, and the State Secretary of State sent a letter to every registrar in every unit (that is, county or independent city), advising them to be on the lookout for anyone mutilating his ballot. Accordingly, that activist desisted from that campaign.

On the other hand, at least one registrar recognizes that power might fail during an election. Inclement weather is one possible cause. Accordingly, every Chief’s Bag contains paper poll books and instructions for counting ballots by hand until the power company can restore power.

The issues that affect election integrity today include without limit:

1. Voter rolls that still have names of voters who have died or moved out of State – or others who shouldn’t vote at all,

2. Ballot Marking Devices (BMDs) that produce output no human can read, and

3. Scanner-tabulators that provide no reliable assurance to anyone on the scene, including the Chief OOE, that the final vote count is accurate.

Latest findings from DOGE, etc.

Over the weekend, Elon Musk held a town hall in advance of tomorrow’s Special Supreme Court Election in Wisconsin. There the entire Congressional district map is under challenge. Musk fears that a liberal court will, in Equitarian fashion, throw out the map in favor of a map that favors Democrats. (An equitarian is a trial judge who abuses his equity powers, or an appellate judge who assumes equity powers his court does not have. Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor of the United States Supreme Court are all equitarians and constitute that Court’s Equitarian Bloc.)

Joining Musk on the rally stage was one Antonion Gracias, a key member of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). According to Jim Hoft at The Gateway Pundit, Musk and Gracias displayed a chart showing:

a dramatic spike in Social Security Numbers issued to non-citizens, soaring from 270,000 in 2021 to a mind-blowing 2.1 million in 2024. That’s almost 5 million non-citizens now embedded in the system—collecting benefits, draining taxpayer dollars, and, most alarmingly, infiltrating the voter rolls.

The arithmetic above might look incomplete, but it reflects incidence, or new cases every year. The five-million figure indicates prevalence, or total existing cases. Social Security remains today the mainstay of personal identification – though the law technically forbids that. The Social Security Administration is supposed to know who is, or is not, a citizen, and when someone dies. Clearly someone wasn’t paying attention. Musk called this:

a massive, large-scale program under the Biden administration to import as many illegals as possible—ultimately to change the voting map of the United States, disenfranchise the American people, and lock in a permanent deep-blue, one-party state from which there’d be no escape.

In fact the Social Security Administration lays itself wide-open to fraud by illegal immigrants. From Mr. Gracias:

And then you walk across the border. They do what’s called a “release on your own recognizance” and give you an NTA — a Notice to Appear — which is to appear before a judge. The wait times on judges are, on average, six years. Look it up on Grok — you’ll see it. Immigration judges — there are only 700 of them. This is 5.5 million people.

So what happens then? Once you’re in the country and you’ve got asylum through one of these pathways — and we mapped the whole thing out — you can apply for a work document. You file a 765 — that’s the work form. You get this form called the 766 — that’s the authorization. And then the Social Security Administration automatically sends you your Social Security number in the mail. No interview. No ID.

What that means for election integrity and Congressional representation

Lay aside the dreadful human cost of trafficking, a frequent means of illegal immigration. Think of how many people now have Social Security numbers – and are offering this as proof of citizenship. In too many States, that’s all the proof one needs to register to vote! Musk and Gracias pointed out that many of those five and a half million not only registered, but also voted.

This is what Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-Va.) was trying to stop with his Executive Order for registration vetting. Recall, from CNAV’s discussion of Executive Order 35, that the Justice Department, and the Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights, sued to force the Commissioner of Elections to leave the voter rolls alone. They alleged that:

1. Noncitizen voting is “vanishingly rare,” and

2. Actual naturalized citizens were losing their right to vote.

Elon Musk has just offered further counterexamples against the first allegation. As to the second, any citizen so affected has ample opportunity to “square” that with his registrar.

Even when noncitizens do not register to vote – or lose voting registration without suffering deportation – their presence presents a problem. The United State Census now counts all persons, excluding only Native Americans who pay no U.S. taxes. Democrats object so vociferously to mass deportation for one reason only: there go their seats in the House of Representatives.

The Michigan election integrity investigation

Michigan is embroiled in a voter fraud scandal that dates from the Election of 2020, involving fraudulent voter registrations. Patty McMurray of The Gateway Pundit has followed that scandal for four years. In her latest report she describes the suspicions surrounding GBI Strategies, a Democrat-funded group specializing in voter registration. One month before the Election of 2020, the Clerk of Muskegon, Mich., noticed boxes of registrations mailed in from Auburn Hills – on the opposite side of the State. Many of these registration forms had the same addresses, and even the same handwriting.

The investigation began with the Muskegon Police Department. But it now involves the Michigan State Police and Michigan’s Secretary of State and Attorney General, both Democrats. Furthermore, more than one City or County Clerk received similar packages from GBI Strategies or its front group, Empower America. Somewhere in the process, the FBI – under Director Christopher Wray – entered the case.

Now State Rep. Rachelle Smit, Chair of the House Committee on Election Integrity, has announced her intention to press the FBI for progress on that investigation. She couldn’t have picked a better time for that pressing – because today the FBI has new, patriotic leadership. So has the Department of Justice, of course.

Equal time for hand-count advocates

Last comes a report of the most significant event in the debate on how and when to count ballots. This report comes from Joe Hoft, occasional Gateway Pundit contributor and host of his own show. The Missouri Clerks Association recently demonstrated electronic voting machines to a skeptical public. Now newly appointed Secretary of State Denny Hoskins has agreed to schedule a demonstration of hand counting. This demonstration will take place April 2, from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon CDT.

https://x.com/PatriotFlyover/status/1902178686175977893

This equal-time demonstration might have been very difficult to arrange, except for a persistent problem with electronic voting machines. No one seems to know how to certify them. In August 2022, a State representative candidate sued the State,

alleging that the laboratories responsible for testing and certifying the state’s electronic voting equipment lacked proper legal accreditation, violating federal election law.

As Jim Hoft of TGP noted then, then-Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft had that suit removed to federal court. The next year, activists filed two formal complaints with the Secretary of State. They alleged noncompliance with State and federal law in electronic voting machine certification. Now Missouri has a new Secretary of State, who is open to election reform to ensure – or restore – election integrity.

In fact, activists in Virginia and many other States specifically allege that no certification of any Ballot Marking Device or scanner-tabulator can legitimately be valid under current procedures. Reasons include:

1. BMDs producing output that humans can’t read, but that the scanner-tabulator is supposed to read, and

2. Scanner-tabulators with proprietary software that therefore represents a secret count, in violation of nearly every State’s laws.

An actual hand-count proposal

About three weeks ago, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) made news with a draft copy of his Make Elections Secure Again Act. Why he has not formally introduced this in the current Congress, CNAV will not speculate. To summarize, Mr. Sessions proposed that States conduct federal elections:

1. In precincts which each have 1500 or fewer registered voters,

2. With voting by mail available only to active-duty military and voters who show a health danger to self or others,

3. With paper poll books that voters must sign, said signature constituting an affidavit of citizenship and non-intent to vote elsewhere,

4. Making BMDs (that produce human-readable output) available only to the handicapped, and

5. Counting all votes by hand, in front of a live-streaming Webcam, by counters trained in advance.

Rep. Sessions did not consider doing away with the Australian Ballot that requires repeated handling to count multiple races. Nor did he consider reforming the college vote, which today skews left. (Though that might not hold much longer! President Trump captured 46 percent of the 18-29 vote.)

That said, election integrity, and reforms leading to it, enjoy the best popular support they’ve ever had. That a State Secretary of State would allow a hand-count demonstration on government property is a significant step. Given Elon Musk’s findings at the Social Security Administration, this couldn’t come at a better time.

Link to:

The article:

https://cnav.news/2025/03/31/foundation/constitution/election-integrity-front-center/

Video:

Video: Musk and Gracias reveal fraud at SSA:

Michigan election integrity investigation:

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/03/mi-speaker-pro-tem-rachelle-smit-were-serious/

Equal time for hand-count advocates:

https://joehoft.com/missouris-new-secretary-of-state-levels-the-playing-field-with-election-integrity-push/

https://x.com/PatriotFlyover/status/1902178686175977893

Declarations of Truth:

https://x.com/DecTruth

Declarations of Truth Locals Community:

https://declarationsoftruth.locals.com/

Conservative News and Views:

https://cnav.news/

Clixnet Media

https://clixnet.com/