If we believe that the heart of man is corrupt (Jer. 17:9), man naturally hates Jesus (John 7:7), his moral reasoning is twisted (Tit. 1:15), and without being united to Christ he can do nothing truly good (John 15:5), then we should apply that general principle consistently to the electoral process of nations.
If a people group has significant numbers of its members bearing the seed of God in their souls so that they “cannot sin because they are born of God” then we might see a preserving influence in society as Jesus calls these members the salt of the earth.
However very few born again people support political parties that promote murder, theft, and adultery through abortion, expanded government, and laws that encourage and even celebrate fornication. Whether in Africa or America, true Christians tend to support parties that follow honesty and hard work more than parties that take power at all costs and appeal to the most sinful, foolish passions of their electorate.
We should expect therefore that sinful politicians will cheat in elections through numerous means unless they are restrained by the collective conscience of their voting base which is influenced by the Salt or restrained by other governmental powers.
Zimbabwe’s election history of the past 25 years shows this as does America’s. For example, in the last 3 presidential elections, democrats in America have consistently claimed the election was stolen, but now Donald Trump is indicted for the same thing.
Or just look at the numbers of votes:
2008 Election Results
| Candidate | Party | Electoral Votes | Popular Votes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ✓ | Barack H. Obama | Democratic | 365 | 69,498,516 | |
| John S. McCain | Republican | 173 | 59,948,323 |
2012 Election Results
| Candidate | Party | Electoral Votes | Popular Votes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ✓ | Barack H. Obama (I) | Democratic | 332 | 65,915,795 | |
| W. Mitt Romney | Republican | 206 | 60,933,504 | ||
| Gary Johnson | Libertarian | 0 | 1,275,971 |
2016 Election Results
| Candidate | Party | Electoral Votes | Popular Votes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ✓ | Donald J. Trump | Republican | 304 | 62,984,828 | |
| Hillary R. Clinton | Democratic | 227 | 65,853,514 | ||
| Gary Johnson | Libertarian | 0 | 4,489,341 |
2020 Election Results
| Candidate | Party | Electoral Votes | Popular Votes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ✓ | Joseph R. Biden | Democratic | 306 | 81,268,867 | |
| Donald J. Trump (I) | Republican | 232 | 74,216,747 |
Observations:
- Obama (2012) and Clinton (2016) received about the same amount.
- Obama (2012) went down by 3 million votes from his previous term, and Hilary went down even further.
- Trump (2020) increased 11 million votes or 18% increase over Trump (2016).
- Biden (2020) however, increased 11 million votes over the first black president, Obama (2008).
- Biden (2020) shattered all previous voting records in American history beating both Obama (2012) and Clinton (2016) by 23%.
Conclusions
- Christians should expect that unbelievers will try to lie in elections because their father is Satan and they are pulled to follow his lusts (John 8:44).
- Stolen elections and voter fraud should be assumed in modern elections with the only question remaining, “To what degree were fraudulent votes admitted?”
- Denying voter fraud as a general principle is like denying total depravity. Why wouldn’t Christians assume that politicians who at the core are bad people are trying to do bad things?
- In a technological, globalized world, voter fraud can happen in numerous, hidden ways.
- Elections do deserve a portion of our heart, labors, and time, but only a small, measured portion since we are looking for a better country whose builder and maker is God.
