Many participants in the weekly Freedom Rides down Main Street in Cortez, organized by the Montezuma County Patriots, say their message of patriotism remains the same after the presidential election.
The Patriots also say 2020 election results are not final. But as of Saturday, former Vice President Joe Biden led the race with more than 78,633,000 individual votes and 290 Electoral College votes compared with President Donald Trump’s 72,910,000 individual votes and 232 electoral votes.
Biden is the projected winner of the White House election, but Trump has refused to concede. The president had challenged the election results in court, but has not yet produced proof for his claims of fraud and irregularities.
“Our election is not over ... we will not lose this battle,” Tiffany Ghere, co-organizer of the Freedom Rides, told those who rallied at the Ute Coffee Shop early Saturday morning.
For the Patriots, the battle over the election, and political power in the country, is important because “our way of life is in jeopardy,” Ghere said.
The Electoral College meets Dec. 14 to vote for president, and Biden has more than the 270 electoral votes needed to win the race, as well as insurmountable leads in states such as Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Arizona.
Most states use their statewide popular vote to cast its electors, but there is a long-shot legal theory that Republican-controlled legislatures in states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania will ignore the popular vote and appoint their own electors.
Federal law allows this if states have “‘failed’ to make a choice” by the day the Electoral College meets, The Atlantic magazine reported. But there is no evidence of systemic fraud or wrongdoing in any state, and Biden’s lead has made it clear states have made a choice.
The Department of Homeland Security called the 2020 presidential election “the most secure in American history.”
Loren Lewis, a participant in the Montezuma County Patriots’ Freedom Rides, said he doesn’t know whether Trump’s legal challenges would succeed, but the election is “not over until it’s over.”
Whatever happens, the message of the Freedom Rides remains the same.
“It wasn’t about the election, it’s about patriotism,” Lewis said.
Raymond Goodall, who ran for Cortez City Council this year, said, “We’ve got to have Trump in there.”
“Trump has always stood with the people,” while politicians such as Biden act only for themselves, Goodall said. He is concerned about tax increase under a Biden presidency to pay for an increase in government programs, he said.
Biden’s foreign policy does not put Americans first, Goodall said, it benefits other countries like China.
In the bitter wind and light snowfall Saturday in downtown Cortez, Ghere said the Patriots are “not fair-weathered.”
“We will not roll over, we will not bow down and give up this freedom,” she said.
ehayes@the-journal.com