The Heritage Foundation has an Election Fraud Database that lists almost 1300 verified cases of voter fraud across the country since 1982. And these are just the ones in which the defendants were found guilty. Of those 1298 cases, 20 were in Virginia.

Now some might think that only government authorities can discover voter fraud, but that is not the case. Poll watchers can also observe and report fraudulent voting practices. Additionally, the very presence of poll watchers frequently prevents the fraudulent practices from happening. Many dishonest officials won’t “bend the rules” if they know they are being watched.

Understand the difference between “poll watchers” and “poll workers.” Poll workers are volunteers who stand outside the polls handing out sample ballots and other material in a last-minute effort to sway voters. Poll watchers are volunteers who stand inside the polling place as representatives of either political parties or candidates and observe the conduct of the election to make sure everyone is following the rules. Poll watchers must have authorization letters from their parties or candidates in order to be inside the election venue.

[Election officials are the paid election staff who actually conduct the balloting in each precinct. In Virginia, half of them are supposed to be Democrats and half Republicans. In too many locations, particularly metropolitan areas, Republicans have a terrible time getting enough people to train and serve as election officials. This puts Republican candidates at a distinct disadvantage.]

One incident occurred recently in Lynchburg that was caught by a poll watcher. She wasn’t sure if she had seen a violation, so she called the appropriate officer of the Lynchburg GOP committee who initiated a quick investigation that revealed a violation of § 24.2-709.1 of the Code of Virginia. This brought an immediate letter to the Registrar from Republican Party of Virginia (RPV) General Counsel Chris Marston. He reminded the Registrar that when the mailed in ballots were being entered into the optical scan ballot counting equipment “that you are required to have present ‘at least two officers of election, one representing each political party.’ Unlike other provisions of the Code that require officers of election representing each party when ‘practicable,’ there is no such proviso in this Code section. It is mandatory whenever this third pre-processing option is in use.”

The Lynchburg Registrar replied within 24 hours that her office would abide by the Code, and she thanked Mr. Marston for bringing the matter to her attention. Considering the mass of voting law changes made by the General Assembly over the summer, this may well have been merely an oversight on the Registrar’s part. Yet because of the presence of a poll watcher, the Lynchburg Republicans will be properly represented when mail-in ballots are counted.

The bigger point is that the poll watcher was not a lawyer or other legal eagle. This was a retired lady who had never before been a poll watcher. She was available, she was willing to give her time to help assure a fair election, and she paid attention while on the job. It isn’t hard, and the RPV provides training.

Five more training sessions are available between this writing and the November election. Click on the dates below to register for a training via Zoom.

• Monday, Oct. 19, 6:30 pm
• Thursday, Oct. 22, 7:30 pm
• Thursday, Oct. 29, 6:30 pm
• Saturday, Oct. 31, 9:30 am
• Monday, Nov. 2, 7 pm

Several people have asked me “What are Republicans doing about stopping voter fraud?” This is a big part of the answer. We are recruiting you to help us monitor and curtail as much of it as we can. And we need poll watchers prior to election day since mail-in ballots and early voting have already begun. Get trained and get scheduled by your local unit leaders. It’s time to do more than just wring our hands. It’s time to get to work.

Cordially,
Steve “Doc” Troxel, Ph.D.

The name Donald Trump seems to trigger apoplectic rage among liberals who are convinced that Trump is guilty of all the things the mainstream media (MSM) accuse him of doing and being. Conservatives believe that the MSM are incredibly biased in how they present the news – when they aren’t simply lying through their teeth. However, we do little good by focusing on personalities rather than on the policy platforms each candidate represents.

We could make better voting decisions if we focused on the stated policies of the two major political parties. Those are pretty straight-forward. Anyone can find them just by looking at each party’s adopted policy platform. The stark differences between the two are quite obvious on a number of important issues.

On the issue of “Sanctity of Human Life,” Republicans are “proud to be the party that protects human life and offers real solutions for women.” They also “strongly oppose infanticide.” Democrats want to use federal tax dollars to pay for abortion on demand from conception until birth and even after birth (as Governor Northam pointed out in his infamous radio interview).  Conservatives advocate that life is precious from conception to the grave. If a person’s life isn’t valuable enough to preserve when in the womb, then it follows that a person’s life has no value at all, but that is a tenet of socialism – people are animals who should be corralled and trained to just do what they are told.

Republicans “strongly support the freedom of Americans to act in accordance with their religious beliefs, not only in their houses of worship, but also in their everyday lives.” Democrats “reject the misuse of religion to discriminate.” The Democratic Party platform fails to define “misuse,” but it means that they want the government to dictate what people of faith get to believe and how they practice their religion. Of course, destroying the moral fiber of a nation is a tactic that Socialism has used for decades to take over a nation.

In a similar manner, Republicans believe that doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals have a right to refrain from participating in medical procedures they find morally objectionable. Democrats would use the term “civil rights” to force all medical professionals – all occupations for that matter – to participate in activities that violate their religious beliefs just because the government tells them they have to accept it – and that is a violation of the First Amendment because by doing so, the government would be establishing state-authorized religion.

Republicans advocate that God has a place in government. “If God-given, natural, inalienable rights come in conflict with government, court, or human-granted rights, God-given, natural, inalienable rights always prevail.” Democrats demand that people of faith keep their faith in their places of worship and not bring their faith into their daily lives. (If it isn’t a part of their daily lives, it isn’t real faith.) Democratic governors around the nation are doing everything they can to shut down churches. Over 2000 churches are being sued for holding religious services during the COVID quarantine. Those governors allow casinos and abortion clinics to be open, but not houses of worship, even though the quarantine has caused so much fear and stress that people need to renew their faith more than ever. And it isn’t just Christians in the crosshairs. A large group of orthodox Jews in New York recently rioted and burned quarantine masks when Governor Cuomo banned them from meeting in their synagogues.

The Democrats even refused to use the phrase “under God” when they recited the Pledge of Allegiance every night of their national convention. They are definitely the anti-God party.

Republicans want to appoint Supreme Court justices who believe that the Constitution is the law of the land and should be taken as written and as intended by the founding fathers. Democrats want Supreme Court justices who will interpret the Constitution to mean what the government wants it to mean regardless of the original intent of the founding fathers or of the will of the people.

Republicans believe that parents should control their children’s education, that is why they support “school choice” and “local control” of education. Democrats want centralized control of education so that the government determines what is taught, not the parents. It is the perfect way for the government to indoctrinate children. That happens in every socialist country, and they have made a measurable start at it in America.

There are dozens more points of difference between the policies in the two parties’ platforms. We would do far better to determine our votes based on how our lives will be affected by the policies of the candidates rather than by the candidates’ personalities. Their policies are far more important than their manners.

Cordially,
Steve “Doc” Troxel, Ph.D.

While cleaning out some old files this week, I ran across some quotes that I had set aside two decades ago when I was teaching on the off chance that I might use them in class. This isn’t school, but I think it’s time to use them.

One of the quotes came from a “Collier’s Magazine” interview with Mark Twain, that was published in September 1905. Mark Twain was actually the pen name for Samuel Clemens (1835-1910), an American humorist, novelist, and satirist. Clemens grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, a Mississippi River port. This gave him the background he needed to write his two most popular novels, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Every boy – and many girls – when I was growing up would read those two adventure stories. Unfortunately, today a bunch of socialist crackpots would demand those books be outlawed since they contain characters who were slaves or freed slaves. I can imagine what Twain would have said about our current mess, but that is for a different article.

His quote that I saved is also for these times. Twain said, “Whenever a Christian votes, he votes against God or for Him, and he knows this quite well. God is an issue in every election; He is a candidate… His purity and His approval are there, to be voted for or voted against…” Christians’ ignorance of and ignoring of which candidates’ policies support Christian freedoms and which ones attack them is perhaps the greatest sin of our day. I’ve said many times that if Christians don’t spread the light of God’s grace into the political arena, then only the forces of darkness will have any say in how our country is governed.

I concur with those who say that God’s first priority is not the preservation of America; rather it is the preservation of the souls of men and women. However, if those men and women have truly had a life changing encounter with the living God, then their voting will reflect the values of God’s heart.

But there is more that the Christian should do than just voting. There is more than campaigning for candidates or even becoming a candidate. A quote by Methodist theologian E.M. Bounds, a contemporary of Mark Twain, also made its way into my old files. Bounds said,

“Few Christians have anything but a vague idea of the power of prayer; fewer still have any experience of that power. The church seems almost wholly unaware of the power God puts into her hand; this spiritual carte blanc on the infinite resources or God’s wisdom and power is rarely, if ever, used – never used to the full measure of honoring God. It is astounding how poor the use, how little the benefits.

“Prayer is our most formidable weapon, but the one in which we are the least skilled, the most averse to its use.”

Those who have had that life changing encounter with God will want to talk with Him about the people and circumstances around them. We very much need that this year. In 2016, the prayers of the people led to God’s miracle of Donald Trump winning the presidency over the odds-on favorite, Hillary Clinton. This year, with all the ballot fraud and election rigging that is going on all over the country, we again need a miracle from God to not only retain the presidency and pick up seats in the Senate, but also to regain control of the House of Representatives, so that Nasty Pelosi does not control the results of a disputed election.

The oft quoted, seldom followed 2 Chronicles 7:14 reads, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from Heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” God was not talking just to the nation of Israel. Christians are also God’s people, and America was once a land blessed by God. Because we have wandered away from God and have allowed godless socialists to fill our children’s minds with ungodly nonsense, we are in the mess we are in. We cannot resolve it without God’s intervention, but we also need to recognize that we are the hands and feet of God on this earth. We have a responsibility, and we as a nation are failing to fulfill it.

The preambles of all fifty state constitutions acknowledge God’s hand in providing our freedoms and our blessings. We need to reclaim the fervency that caused that gratitude to be firmly associated with our governments. And the reason for that is provided by another quote from my old files. William Penn, the founder of the colony (later Commonwealth) of Pennsylvania, said, “Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.” If you don’t believe him, just watch the news.

Cordially,
Steve “Doc” Troxel, Ph.D.

During my two decades as a college professor, I, along with a number of my colleagues, would at the start of each semester teach a class called Freshman seminar. The one week, required seminar was designed to help incoming students acclimate to the college environment.

To illustrate one of the points we were supposed to teach, I would ask a random guy in the class if he had ever asked a girl out on a date. Invariably he had. Then I would ask if he had ever met any girls that he would not want to ask out. Again, another yes. Then I would ask a random girl if she had ever been asked out… by a guy with whom she did not want to go out? Well, yes. Then I would ask them both whether they would be able to give specific reasons why they would choose to go out with one person and not another. I didn’t want to know what those reasons were, I just wanted to know whether they knew. Then I asked a question that stumped almost everyone in all the Seminars I taught over the years. “Why are those reasons the standard by which you determine your choice of dates?” With that, I accomplished my purpose. Instead of just going with what their parents, peers, or favorite movies told them was a good choice, I now had them questioning their preconceived ideas. Those students had taken the first step toward learning how to think for themselves.

I mention this story because too many people hold certain beliefs, but they do not know why they hold them. They have never questioned those beliefs, and they cannot defend them against counter arguments. They just blindly hold on to their cherished beliefs. Those people have learned what to think, but they have not learned how to think.

It’s like geometry, which is built on postulates and theorems. Postulates are ideas that are assumed to be true. Theorems are ideas that must be proven using postulates and other theorems.. The problem comes when a false idea is assumed to be true. People use it as a postulate, which results in faulty logic and false theorems.

Higher education in America has become driven by socialist educators who tell their side of the argument and expect their students to accept that side as a postulate. They do not allow other views to be presented. And if a student wants a passing grade, they have to parrot the professor’s pet philosophy. In no way does that teach students how to think for themselves. It only teaches them to buy into “group think” and to be close-minded about anything that does not walk in lockstep with it.

The inability to think and challenge basic ideas is a waste of American minds and is destroying all that is good about America.

One Democrat postulate is “orange-haired man is bad.” Supporters of the socialist philosophy assume their disdain of President Trump is based on supposed postulates that they were taught in class or were fed by CNN, MSNBC, and other hyper-liberal sources. They use those postulates – that are not real postulates – to justify their positions, their theorems, if you will, upon which they build their political philosophies. Unfortunately, those passionate and vitriolic Trump-haters have never bothered to explore the underlying sources of their beliefs. They expend an incredible amount of psychological and physical energy based on what someone else has declared to be a postulate rather than on what they have explored and determined for themselves is the truth.

Socialist educators do not want their students to engage in exploratory reasoning because they know that their socialist “postulates” will not stand against open and honest scrutiny. They are false ideas. They always have been. These socialists hide their falsehoods behind loud, raucous screams of outrage against things they claim others have done when actually they themselves are guilty of those exact things. It is by these tactics that educators and media personalities attempt to keep their rank-and-file so busy reacting to what they have been taught, that they will not find the time to examine the truth behind the “postulates” that are the basis of their teaching.

Thankfully, many among the Democrat rank-and-file are starting to really examine the socialist postulates. And because they are, they are leaving the Democrat Party. They no longer start at the point where their socialist influencers want them to start. They now go two, three, ten steps further back in the reasoning process. When they start with real postulates, real truths, they come to totally different conclusions than the ones to which the false postulates they have been taught would lead them.

Americans owe it to themselves to evaluate why they think what they think and whether they are basing their beliefs on actual truths. It is the first and essential step in learning how to think.

Cordially,
Steve “Doc” Troxel, Ph.D.

There is not enough time between now and the election for today’s letter to cover only one topic.

My father celebrated his 100^th birthday last week. We took a picture of him with his youngest great-granddaughter, Alanna. They are 100 years apart in age. I couldn’t help but think of how different things were in America when my father was born, but also how much they are the same.

In 1920, Woodrow Wilson, the first “progressive” president was trying to get America to accept the League of Nations in a context that would give it authority over America. Americans were smart enough then to reject this idea. Today, too many Americans have been brainwashed by “progressive” educators, and they now believe that letting the United Nations have authority over America is a good idea. If Biden wins the White House and the “progressive” wing of the Democrat Party win the Senate, we will lose our autonomy before Alanna reaches her tenth birthday, and it could happen before she reaches her first birthday.

The UN wants to do away with national borders so that any quickly populating nationality can immigrate unhindered into countries with stagnant populations – such as America and the European countries – regardless of ideological compatibility. The votes of Americans would no longer matter because anyone would be allowed to vote, and the oligarchy of the UN would override those votes anyway if they didn’t like the outcome.

Which brings me to my second item: probably 20 to 25 percent of conservatives in the Sixth District are not registered to vote. And when asked to register, far too many of those unregistered citizens say they don’t want to register because they don’t want to be called for jury duty. That ranks as one of the most stupid and irresponsible excuses I have ever heard. People who won’t fulfil their responsibility to vote for the preservation of the nation because they don’t want to be inconvenienced by their civic duty, don’t deserve their liberties. Unfortunately, everyone else’s life will likewise go in the trash if we lose this election.

Which brings up another important point: we can’t focus our Get-Out-the-Vote efforts on November 3. Under new Virginia laws, voting begins on September 18. As of September 1, absentee ballot requests were running ten times higher than for the entire 2016 election. And registrars are sending letters to voters offering to send them early ballots so that the percentages will be even higher. Your local Republican chairman should have a plan in place to reach those individuals with sample ballots and then make sure that conservative voters’ ballots actually make it back into the registrar’s office. Democrats have been blatant this year about their history of fixing elections. And the Democrat majority in Virginia’s General Assembly has passed laws that remove barriers to several types of election fraud. Patriots cannot just wring their hands and moan in frustration. You – not someone else – you need to get involved. There is much that can be done, but it must be done by committed volunteers because Republicans don’t have the money the Democrats do to hire operatives, who by the way have been working on this full time for over a year. Contact your local GOP chairman for information. If your chairman can’t give you anything to do, contact me.

In addition to elections for Congress, U.S. Senate and President, the ballot contains two proposed amendments to the Virginia Constitution. I favor both of them, but Amendment 1 is crucial. It calls for a non-partisan commission to do the redistricting that is required following each U.S. Census. The Democrats, who helped write the amendment, are now fighting it. If it fails to pass, then the same Democrat controlled General Assembly that has so trampled the rights of Virginians will have the license to gerrymander the Delegate and State Senate and Congressional districts to give themselves an unbeatable edge for years to come

Finally, I recently celebrated my birthday. In lieu of cards and presents, I would ask that my generous and supportive readers make a significant donation to Daniel Gade’s campaign. And instead of taking the time to throw a birthday party for me, spend that time doing door-to-door campaigning for him and our other candidates. Or make phone calls. Or maybe even talk to your friends and neighbors to explain to them why it is time for Virginia to get a new U.S. Senator.  Gade has the credentials to beat self-serving, do-nothing Mark Warner. Gade just needs to get his message out. That requires money and volunteers. The biggest present you could give me is a victory for Daniel Gade and a permanent end to Mark Warner’s failure to look out for the best interests of Virginians.

Let’s do what we have to do to preserve our country. It won’t happen unless we actually get out and start doing. If not for yourself, then do it for my grandniece Alanna. If she, like her great-grandpa, lives 100 years, help her do it in a country that celebrates its liberty and continues to be the hope of the world.

Cordially,
Steve “Doc” Troxel, Ph.D.