With election integrity concerns, a raging "cancel culture" on the prowl, and an administration in power with a clear agenda that is antithetical to biblical values, it's a challenging time to be a believer in America. So is it time to wave the white flag and throw in the towel? On the contrary, what became clear from last night's Pray Vote Stand townhall meeting held at Cornerstone Chapel in Leesburg, Virginia is that the time is now for all believers to dive headfirst into the battle for our country.
It's also clear that the people of God want to get engaged in order to restore the foundation of our democracy: the right of citizens to have their votes count. The opening question from a participant was, "How can we protect the integrity of our elections so that we may have confidence in the outcome?"
Dr. Mike Farris, president and CEO of Alliance Defending Freedom, was frank when describing what happened in November and the steps that need to be taken to restore election integrity. "There were constitutional irregularities [in states that were very close], which means that they counted the ballots in a way that didn't match the preexisting state law ... I believe that the central problem was the failure to follow the preestablished process in counting the votes."
Farris gave a concrete example of how a failure to follow state law can affect an election outcome. "For example, in Georgia, the number of ballots that were mailed in in 2016 and were disqualified for irregularities was a few percentage points, but it was less than one percent that were disqualified [in 2020]. This time, [there was] a complete change in the number of ballots that were disqualified because they use[d] a different system of counting. And if you use a different system of counting, [you get] a different outcome."
What steps need to be taken to improve election integrity? Farris made three points: (1) By law, state legislatures have the authority to determine presidential election laws, and they must act to restore constitutional election law. (2) The Democrat-formulated H.R. 1 bill currently in Congress must be defeated because of how it undermines election integrity. (3) Conservative legal teams must challenge the flood of litigation from the Left (over 300 cases in the past year) that is designed to loosen ballot integrity.
"Here's the good news," said FRC President Tony Perkins. "There is action taking place to go back and correct what was uncovered in this last election." There are currently 106 election related bills in 28 states that are being considered, so the momentum is beginning to move in favor of election reform in the states. "You have a much better chance of convincing your state legislature to change their laws than you have of Congress to change the laws or to stop bad laws from coming out of Congress."
Still, many believers are understandably discouraged these days after so much chaos in our election system. A number of townhall participants wondered, "Why should I continue to show up at the voting booth given the lack of integrity in our election system?" Pastor Gary Hamrick of Cornerstone Chapel answered this question with a poignant one: "If we check out, then who will be the righteous voice in the land? We have to stay engaged."
Hamrick went on to express his concern with the lack of unity in the church on the most critical issues facing our country. "[Some Christians are] not willing to defend the unborn because [they] are saying that life is a 'holistic' issue -- which it can be -- and so therefore they gravitate towards other causes like immigration, health care, the environmental stuff, so they're approaching life from this 'holistic' vantage point. But the problem is, if you don't defend the basic right to life, all those other issues mean nothing."
He issued a challenge to the church: "We've got our work cut out for us just to bring unity to the church of Jesus Christ over biblical issues, that we would get on the same page about what is right and what is wrong ... It is upside down in our culture right now ... Until the church can get on the same page about some of these life issues and moral issues, I don't know how we're going to make a real difference in our nation."
FRC's Pray Vote Stand townhall event covered many other issues that are of concern to believers, including transgenderism in public schools, the future status of Roe v. Wade, religious liberty concerns for believers on the horizon in America, and the persecution of Christians around the world. Be sure to watch the entirety of this important event.
