Tonight’s City of Chicago edition of Public Affairs features Steve Boulton,  Chair of the Chicago GOP, who has decades of expertise as a trial lawyer who also handles electoral disputes involving both the courts and Administrative hearings.

The focus of our show with Boulton is on ballot integrity– in terms of the vast difference between the ability of partisan observers to act as watchdogs to prevent fraud in the current, more challenging mail-in and early voting– as opposed to the more traditional one day, in-person voting, which was the dominant custom in America for centuries until the last two decades.

The show airs tonight in Chicago at 8:30 pm and midnight on Cable Ch 21 (CAN TV).

You can also watch the show 24/7 by clicking here.

The show also airs:

— in Aurora this Wednesday & Saturday at 6 pm on Cable Ch 10 and

— in Rockford this Thursday night at 8:30 pm on Cable Ch. 19

Additionally, the extremely close Presidential elections of 2016 and 2020, documented in detail during our show, has brought into question the legitimacy of the last President and the current one- and the potential impact of election fraud on those and other elections

How much corruption and fraud has there been and is still present in our elections? Is it likely there was a sharp uptick in voter fraud due to the big surge in mail in ballots in 2020?

People who claim there is no evidence of impactful fraud in the last two presidential elections must deal with the facts that there are virtually no state or federal agencies assigned to detect, investigate and prosecute fraud in national elections and that both elections were decided by very narrow margins in three or four battleground states.  

Our show with Boulton was very timely in terms of the U. S. Supreme Court’s July 1, 2021 ruling (Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee) in the very important Arizona voting rights case (filed in 2016) and the DOJ voting rights lawsuit filed on June 25, 2021 against Georgia.    

The Berkowitz- Boulton discussion was taped two days before the Brnovich Supreme Court ruling was issued- rejecting the DNC’s claims that the Arizona election law that significantly curtails ballot harvesting and requires votes cast outside of a voter’s precinct to be discarded was unconstitutional and violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act. 

Attorney Boulton discusses in detail the major differences in fraud detection and prevention between an election as we had in America for centuries where most of the voting occurred on a single day and usually with no voting site alternatives and the current system where the great majority of the voting occurs over an “Election season,” of more than ten days (and some as many as 55 days), includes massive mail in voting and often offers voters multiple voting location choices, with opportunities to vote at drop boxes and curbside in addition to voting at the usual precinct polling facility.   

Because our show discussion anticipated much of the Brnovich decision, it should help viewers understand the Supreme Court’s opinion in that key voting rights case. That includes the implications for how the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to decide similar lawsuits challenging election laws that have been passed in Georgia, Florida and are likely to be passed within the next twelve months in Texas and other states.   

Most Dem Party officials and operatives argue the Georgia and Florida laws are designed to discourage minority voting, are discriminatory against minorities and violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 

Others, including the majorities in the Georgia and Florida legislatures and most other Republican Party officials disagree and argue the new election laws are designed to prevent fraud and insure ballot integrity and security. 

The Biden Administration’s DOJ,  in an apparent attempt to beat the release of the Supreme Court opinion in Brnovich and avoid the ackwardness of filing a lawsuit that it knew the basis of which was contradicted by a very recent Supreme Court opinion, filed its lawsuit on June 25, 2021 against Georgia arguing on similar grounds to those argued by the DNC in its 2016 lawsuit involving Arizona that the new Georgia election law violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

DOJ knew the ruling in the Arizona case was imminent and it also knew the Supreme Court would likely rule in a manner contrary to the DOJ’s legal position in the lawsuit it filed against Georgia in Federal Court about a week before the Court’s ruling. 

Georgia will of course argue its law was constitutional and not illegal, in part because Georgia has a compelling need to prohibit voter fraud and moreover, the law had neither a racially discriminatory intent nor effect, all of which the Supreme Court found in its decision on July 1 holding the Arizona law (similar to that of Georgia on voting) constitutional.  

We explore the above and other related issues with Boulton, an expert in voting laws, voting regulations and voting practices, and we provide a foundation for understanding some of the likely benign motivations of the Georgia legislators- as the Arizona law was found by the Supremes to be benign, i.e., not motivated by a racially discriminatory intent and it also did not have an illegal racially discriminatory impact.