On November 5, 2020, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) President and influential theologian Albert Mohler made comments in his podcast The Briefing regarding voter fraud and how Americans should react. Mohler shared earlier this year that he would be voting for Donald Trump, after as he put it he “regretted” giving his 2016 vote “minimal importance by casting it for a third-party candidate.”
Mohler pointed out that as it currently stands, the forecast of the 2020 Presidential election looks to favor Joe Biden. Reports show Biden reaching the much needed 270 Electoral College votes in projected results.
President Trump and his supporters have been very clear how they feel there have been multiple “election irregularities,” as Mohler called them. There are two issues that need to be confronted clearly, the SBTS president said.
“No American should be willing to allow for [election fraud] to happen,” Mohler told his audience. If there is credible evidence of any effort to commit voter fraud “then that needs to be identified and investigated.” Mohler clearly pointed out that if an investigation does not change the results of the election, “Americans should deal with that.”
Mohler then said, “All Americans should be agreed that every single vote of every single citizen should be counted.” He then expressed, “Furthermore, we must believe that an election isn’t over until every single vote of every single citizen, rightly and lawfully cast is counted.” Every single American citizen should not be satisfied “if there is any question about the actual veracity of the voting process,” Mohler clearly stated.
If voter fraud or miscount actually happened the question that Mohler says has to be asked is “whether or not any credibly questioned or challenged votes would have a material impact upon the final vote count.” He then used this example with “hypothetical math”:
Let’s say a million people voted, and if a million people voted and there are two candidates and only two candidates, then someone who gets 500,001 in just a popular election would win the election. And thus, if you’re looking at gaining something like let’s say 550,000 over against 450,000 and it turns out that 10,000 votes are in question by possible fraud, manipulation or miscount. The fact is that that should be investigated, but even if every one of those questionable ballots should turn out to be invalid, it wouldn’t change the actual result of the election.
As America awaits the results of the remaining states to report their numbers, Mohler said, “At this point, there is no serious credible concern [about the vote] that is a matter of public record.”
The Christian concern is the bigger issue. Mohler said it this way, “We recognize that in a fallen world, a form of self-government, constitutional self-government is itself rather fragile.” History has revealed its extreme fragility. Mohler said:
American experiment in ordered liberty is still just about singular in its success, four years by four years in electoral cycles. The stability of our constitutional order is indeed the marvel of the world and it is a stewardship for Americans and every generation. It’s a stewardship for us now. But we have to understand that the most crucial test of a Democratic form of self-government when it comes to the electoral process is what happens when there is a change of party identification at the top of the ticket. That is the huge question, and of course it ricochets throughout the entire political order. Considering where we are right now, it would have to do with whether or not there would be a respect for a change in the partisan leadership of the House or of the Senate, or for that matter, a continuation of the pattern. It has to do, more than anything else, when the party that has held the White House loses and thus must vacate the White House and acknowledge the presidency of the opposing party.
After a brief history lesson of how America elected its first president George Washington to how Lyndon Johnson basically stole his Senate election to John F. Kennedy’s 1960 win that came down to the state of Illinois, Mohler pointed out that what is happening currently in this election can happen and has happened. He warned that “making generalized charges of voter fraud without specifics that can be investigated, that’s quite dangerous to America as a nation.”
Listen to the entire The Briefing here.
