Today is July 19, 2023.

Candidates for the 2024 Republican nomination are on the campaign trail in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Our governor, Gov. Josh Shapiro, elected in 2022, has shepherded his first budget through the state Legislature.

The U.S. Supreme Court about one year ago upended decades of precedent regarding the legality of abortion and in the past few weeks released important decisions regarding student loan relief, affirmative action in college admissions and the balance between business owners’ moral and ethical convictions and the expectations of consumers.

And, as the Williamsville Sun-Gazette reported recently, a judge for Lycoming County Court decided to dismiss a lawsuit seeking a forensic audit of the 2020 election results.

We hope that after more than 31 months, voters can finally put the election of 2020 behind them.

As PennLive.com’s reporting on the decision noted, There are no clauses or provisions within our state’s Election Code that allow a third party, such as the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, to compel a forensic audit. Moreover, our commissioners have humored the conspiracy theorists with recounts and analyses of an election in which the Democratic nominee and victor won more votes than the Democratic nominee in 2016 — but fewer than in 2008.

In other words, the numbers were largely in line with historical trends for our county.

As we have editorialized before, the acrimony and suspicion surrounding the 2020 election results is counterproductive. It’s a distraction from where the focus of the Biden Administration’s critics should be — making the case to voters that the homeowners and businesses cannot have their energy bills hostage to environmental alarmism, the case that future generations cannot afford the terrifyingly ballooning national debt and the case that our elected officials should share our region’s reverence for the Bill of Rights — including the Second Amendment — among others.

Instead, we fear the conclusion of making the case that our elections are hopelessly rigged can only be a sense that voting is ultimately pointless.

It isn’t. It matters more than ever, and if we look ahead to the important matters of principle and policy, that truth should be apparent.