By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Tom Cruise yelled famously in the film “Jerry Maguire” to “Show me the money!”

In that spirit, I am inclined to yell out to Republican politicians intent on perpetuating the Big Lie about the 2020 election: Show me the vote fraud!

GOP pols in states all across the nation keep pitching for “voter reforms” they contend will protect the electoral process from fraud that they imply is rampant. The keep feeding that fantasy that the 2020 presidential election was somehow, some way rife with corruption.

Holy cow, man! It was clean, free and fair. It also was the most secure election in U.S. history, according to a Trump administration official, Christopher Krebs, who was hired to ensure the election’s security.

I watched Texas state Rep. Briscoe Cain today rail on and on about protecting the state’s electoral system against fraud. He didn’t cite a single shred of evidence that fraud even exists. Yet this GOP lawmaker is being charged with crafting vote-restriction legislation aimed at making it more difficult for Texans to vote.

He is far from alone. Republican members of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House bellow and bluster continually about alleged voter fraud. It doesn’t exist in anywhere even close to the level that these pols keep implying.

It is maddening and infuriating in the extreme to hear allegedly responsible public figures make assertions that are patently untrue and then to foist legislation on us that they base solely on the lie they keep fomenting.

Our elections are the product of hard work at the local, county and state level. States such as Texas have worked diligently to protect our electoral system. Have they enacted a totally fool-proof process? No. Instances of fraud, though, are rare. They amount to an infinitesimal fraction of the millions of ballots that we cast.

When I hear politicians cite threats and fears of “widespread vote corruption,” I am left only to exclaim in the loudest voice I can summon to “Show me the vote fraud!”