Despite being buried in snow – the groundhog got it right this year – some of us are actually glimpsing warm Fenway nights at the end of the tunnel.  Optimism is a uniquely human characteristic.  So, too, are honesty and fairness and decency.  Which is why I’ve written so often about the real Abraham Lincoln and the fictional Atticus Finch and our very own David Souter.  They inspire us to be the best we can humanly be, whether we’re in the public eye or just doing the best we can in our own quiet lives.

I say all this because it’s not a view of human nature universally shared – and not one even held by some of those we look to as role models for the best citizens we might be.  Instead, they assume the worst about us and believe that if there are contrary views being expressed or unfavorable outcomes occurring, they must be the result of fraud or dishonesty or sedition – because they couldn’t possibly be based on anything else.

Where this is manifesting itself in America today is in the conduct of our elections and in distrust of any result that doesn’t support a certain view of how governing should be conducted.  Which is why even years after the 2020 votes were counted and recounted and after lawsuits in every state were dismissed due to lack of any evidence whatsoever of dishonest “rigging”, there are those still unwilling to accept the contrary results that have now been confirmed beyond the shred of a doubt.  Maybe it’s just festering scars on the tenderest of egos or maybe it’s the pessimistic assumption that everyone is cheating and that others must have unfairly out-cheated them.

I don’t know about the ego factor, but I can add something about the cheating presumption.   You may have seen me at our local ballot box on election day, a role that also gives me access to a computer listserv among election officials from all over our State.  And in the months leading up to a season of primary and general elections, I can confirm the receipt of at least 25 messages a day from colleagues in charge of their elections, all geared toward trying to make them as transparent as possible and the results as accurate as they can be.  Not one of them has asked how it might be possible to allow fictional or deceased people to vote, or where to park the buses of voters from Massachusetts, or how to quickly dispose of huge numbers of ballots for an opposition candidate.  Nor have any of those or other alleged abuses of the electoral process ever been exposed during any investigation of votes cast here during any prior State or federal election. 

So, with 234 cities and towns in New Hampshire, with the State also being as purple as any other in the Union, and with some municipalities being bright red and others true blue, I’m going to declare the Granite State a valid representation of all other American jurisdictions and hereby put to rest any lingering concern that there is rampant – nay, even miniscule – fraud occurring in or around voting booths anywhere in the US of A.

Consequently, if the results of an election show that a candidate lost by a considerable margin – that is, by more votes than might legitimately deserve a recount – I have a few suggestions for the loser’s post-election behavior: thank those who worked tirelessly and without pay on your campaign; repress your urge to express any petty and baseless claims that the system was rigged against you; concede the outcome unequivocally and graciously; and offer your opponent your sincere cooperation and assistance.  Any reaction lacking in such decency will not alter the result, but will surely convince those who were on the fence – but didn’t vote for you – that they cast their ballots for the most deserving candidate after all. 

Any finally, as one who takes personally any suggestion that I or my colleagues around the State or nation might have played a role in surreptitiously causing your defeat, I will not only not vote for you on any other occasion, but I will not do so for any others who share your groundless view that hardworking volunteers might have conspired to subvert the legitimate outcome and that such patriotic Americans deserve to be prosecuted, imprisoned or worse – maybe deported. 

L. Phillips Runyon III has practiced law in Peterborough for 50 years and was the presiding justice of the 8th Circuit Court for 27 years.