The Seattle Times editorial printed recently in the Kennebec Journal/Morning Sentinel (“Arizona’s recount fiasco imperils US elections,” May 15), parrots a familiar tune: “Voter fraud doesn’t exist so stop looking for it!”

Given the number of last-minute changes in the 2020 elections, including large amounts of private money and the involvement of private advocacy groups in the actual handling of ballots and voting procedures, the massive increase in mail-in voting (which caused several problems, for example the New York 12th District primary fiasco), and the use of COVID-19 restrictions to suppress observers in places such as Pennsylvania, one would think that we need a massive audit to make certain that everything was above board.

Instead, we are told not only that the Arizona audit is not being done properly, but also that no audit beyond a simple recount is necessary. No need to prove the security of mail-in balloting, the essence of “election oversight” is for people like Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman to tell us not to question anything.

The editors assure us that we should trust well-established policy for handling electoral disputes, even though well-established policies for holding the elections themselves were altered in favor of new procedures. They tell us the involvement of a private entity in the audit invalidates the audit, notwithstanding the involvement of private entities in handling the election, both in funding and in procedures (see the National Vote at Home Institute in Wisconsin).

If there were nothing to hide, they would be discussing alternate ways to conduct an audit, not just insisting that audits not happen. The only thing the audit imperils is the agenda of making every election as loose as 2020.

Michael Jose

Augusta