It’s fairly clear to me that the question to ask this year isn’t what we’re going to do if the Democrats try to steal the Presidential election, but what we’re going to do when they try to do so. Today’s revelation (in an Associated Press article, no less) that Senator Kerry plans to, claim victory on Election Night and name a National Security team without knowing whether or not he’s actually won is strong confirmation of what many of us have suspected all along: the Democrats are planning, if they lose, to outright steal the election. If they can’t win on their own, then they’re going to use every resource at their disposal to cheat.

In a way, this goes a long way to explaining one important question: why have Democrats spent such vast amounts of money on voter registration efforts? According to one report, Democrat 527 Americans Coming Together has spent $125 million registering 366,000 voters in four battleground states. In other words: they’re spending $341.53 for every voter they’ve managed to register. Seemingly worse for the Democrats, these efforts have generated thousands upon thousands of fraudulent registrations, to the point where, in more than one Ohio county, there are notably more registered voters than people. There are 1,066,222 people eligible to vote in Philadelphia, an amazing feat since, according to the most recent Census, there are 1,025,259 people of voting age in that city.

Now, here’s the trick. Let’s say that voter turn-out goes slightly upwards in Philadelphia this time, up to 51% of all people of voting age. This would mean that 522,882 people would vote in the city: fewer than last time by roughly 30,000. Moreover, this would mean that only 49% of eligible voters would have shown up to vote. All of this strikes me as plausible, given the actual number of people in the city. A 3% increase in voter turn-out seems entirely reasonable. But what will the Democrats say?

Within hours of the results, if Bush wins Pennsylvania, they’ll be flooding every television screen in the nation with crying blacks telling of how they were horribly intimidated by evil Republican poll workers, police officers, etc. The Democrats will then use the massive difference between the number of people registered to vote and the number of people who actually voted as prima facie evidence of “voter intimidation” and “election manipulation.” The networks and newspapers will draw up graphs of the wide chasm between those eligible to vote and those who did. “Why, in such a close and passionate election, would so many choose not to vote?” the anchors will solemnly ask, the answer obvious in their tone of voice.

This is the only way I can think of that the Kerry campaign could plausibly need the five “recount” teams that they plan to have on standby around the country on Election Night: they’re not planning to, if they have to, contest the actual vote totals at all, but rather they plan to contest the elections themselves.

This is also, of course, where the matter of electronic voting comes in. I’m sure they’ll have no trouble finding Democrats who will swear out statements claiming that, to give one example, the number of people who entered a polling place in a Democratic area is far lower than the number of votes actually reported. Various partisan election officials will be found to come forward with lurid tales of tampered machines and erased votes.

That’s the whole point of election manuals instructing local Democrats to make “pre-emptive” complaints about non-existent “voter intimidation.” It allows them to invalidate results even where the election isn’t particularly close. Even if they fail, they win, since their rabid base will believe pretty much anything at this point.

The question now becomes: what can we do about all of this? There’s really one important thing: we need to start spinning early. This is why it’s vitally important to collect as much information about post-election theft attempts now. We also need to be ready with statistics: historical vote counts and the like to show that voter totals are consistent with past numbers. It will also be critical to be prepared to, at an instant, begin looking hard into the backgrounds of anyone who claims to have been a victim of “voter intimidation.”

But more than that, we need to understand something else: winning the election will not, in all probability, be the end of the battle. We need to be ready to fight back against Democratic spin and steal attempts at Midnight on November 3rd.

More than anything else, this means unity: if, the day after the election, those fair-minded allegedly-Republican pundits who crave Democratic affection successfully call for people to “wait for the facts” or some other such nonsense, we’ll surely lose or, at the very least, end up with a hellacious fight.

The only solution is to head in, at the first possible moment, with our voices shouting and our fists flying (hopefully only in a metaphorical sense). We can’t be taken by surprise when the Democrats move: we have to be both materially and mentally prepared for them to act.

That last part is almost as important as the former: in a contested election aftermath I’m fairly sure that the friends of the President will provide the money and resources required. Ultimately, any post-election contest will be, at its core, a clash of wills. We have to be stronger than them, more determined than them, and more willing to go the distance than they are.

I think that the Democrats are planning on playing a grand game of chicken with the whole of the nation along for the ride. They’re going to disrupt and delay the election results for as long as possible and make as many false claims as possible in the hopes that, eventually, Republicans will be persuaded to pack it in for the ‘good of the nation.” Various “moderate” Republicans and non-partisan commentators will point to the example of Nixon in 1960 and suggest that, for the good of the country, the President will have to concede.

After all, we still don’t really know who won the election of 1960. Nixon, contrary to myth, even won the popular vote that year (the Kennedy “win” is manufactured by adding votes for a slate of ‘unpledged’ Democratic electors in Alabama to the Kennedy totals) and, more than likely, lost both Illinois and Texas as a result of fraud. Nixon, it being a more gentlemanly age, conceded rather than put the nation through a trauma without a definable end.

Nixon’s example was a good one: Al Gore should have followed it in 2000. However, regardless of the trauma and danger it may cause, we must ensure that Bush is not pushed into following it this year. We cannot let the Democrats steal this election, even if they drag it right through to January 20th. If we have to, we can have the House put through a Bush win, or failing that, we can drag the thing out and make Dennis Hastert the acting President.