Letter to the Editor: Stand with the electorate, not the mob

Supporters of President Donald Trump gather at the U.S. Capitol. (Jan. 6, 2021) Photo courtesy of Elvert Barnes/Flickr

Sen. Dan Sullivan, you are a smart man. You know that the 2020 election — despite the COVID pandemic and civil unrest — was the most free, fair and secure in our history thanks to courageous citizens: poll workers, state election officials, state legislators, courts and Electoral College electors. If you refuse to believe that, then your election and our democracy are also suspect. Are you willing to admit that?

You and the likes of Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley pretending that a “9/11 type” commission would assuage the “concerns” people have about our elections is ridiculous. It would only provide a grandstand for those representatives and senators who believe their political futures lie in smearing our electoral system and disenfranchising American voters.

The errors or fraud that may exist in our elections are so minuscule that the outcome of the 2020 elections will not change one iota. Your candidate lost. He got less votes. That is how elections work. How would you react if the shoe were on the other foot and Alaska’s election outcome was challenged? For better or worse, people look up to men like you for leadership. That means that you have an obligation to tell us the truth, unvarnished by narrow political aspirations. 

While Donald Trump and his acolytes bear the brunt of the blame for Wednesday’s malevolent attack on our democracy — with the vandalism, injuries and deaths — too many of your Republican colleagues are complicit by raising baseless and dangerous doubts about our elections.

I urgently ask you to join Senators Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, and Rep. Don Young affirming — without reservation — that the election was legitimate and to distance yourself from the calls for a constitutionally suspect commission. I am sure you do not want Wednesday’s harrowing spectacle at the Capitol to have only been a dress rehearsal.

Karl Becker
Cordova

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