Claiming that ballots (ostensibly cast by Democrats) had been “forged,” the President of the United States declared this morning that the counting of votes in Florida should stop immediately, and that that Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis should be declared the winners of their respective races. This, Donald Trump reasoned, was the right thing to do, as both men were ahead in the vote count on election night.
It should also be noted, however, that Donald Trump has offered no evidence that ballots cast in Florida had been, to use his terminology, “massively infected.” Furthermore, if the counting of votes were to be stopped now, it would be in violation of numerous state and federal laws, seeing as how there are still ballots that have yet to be counted. Most notably, people serving in the U.S. military, in accordance with our laws, have until November 16 to have their mail-in ballots counted, assuming they were postmarked on, or before, Election Day. [That’s right, not only did he cancel plans to visit Arlington today, on Veterans’ Day, but he suggested that we disenfranchise members of the U.S. military serving abroad.]
I know it must be confusing to our President, who has a limited grasp of our democracy works, but we have laws governing how elections are managed, and those laws, as Florida’s Democratic candidate for Governor Andrew Gillum said yesterday, require that “we count every vote.” And, in extremely tight races, like these two in Florida, there are even laws mandating recounts.
Here, with a bit of the background as to what’s happening right now in Florida, is an excerpt from FiveThirtyEight.com.
…In Florida, Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson initially appeared to have conceded on election night (his opponent, Republican Gov. Rick Scott, also claimed victory) but reversed course after continued vote-counting in Broward and Palm Beach counties narrowed Scott’s lead to just 0.15 percentage points, or 12,562 votes. That’s important because, under Florida law, any election within half a percentage point margin triggers a machine recount, and then, after that, if an election is within a quarter of a percentage point, it triggers a manual recount (where all ballots are retabulated by hand). On Saturday, the secretary of state officially ordered the machine recount, which must be completed by Thursday, Nov. 15. However, the real drama will likely come if there’s a hand recount, and whether we learn if the unusually high number of undervotes in the Senate race in Broward County are the result of a machine error. If so, Nelson may have a shot. If not, Scott is probably safe, as recounts rarely overturn election results…
Republican former Rep. Ron DeSantis was declared the next governor of Florida on election night, but now the same delay in vote-counting that tightened the Florida Senate race has brought the gubernatorial contest within recount range as well. On Saturday, DeSantis led Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by 0.41 percentage points; therefore, the secretary of state ordered a machine recount. While Gillum has taken back his concession and the AP and ABC have both retracted their projections, this remains a long shot for Democrats. A reversal of a 33,684-vote margin would be unprecedented in modern times. We’ll find out for sure on Nov. 15…
It should also be noted that this is not something that we’re just dealing with in Florida. As I’m writing this, there are still 17 races that are too close to call… 2 for the Senate, 13 for the House, and 2 for governorships. [There were still three Senate races that had been undecided, up until a few hours ago, when the Arizona race was called for Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, the first non-Republican to win a Senate seat in that state in 30 years.]
So, as Florida election officials work through the process, doing what they need to do under the law, our President is echoing the unfounded claims of conspiracy theorists like Rick Scott, who told Fox News a few days ago that, “Senator Nelson is trying to commit fraud to win this election.” As a Florida judge said today, after urging everyone involved to tone down the rhetoric, there is no evidence of fraud in Broward County… As for why this judge may have urged people to tone down the rhetoric, let’s not forget that it was just a few weeks ago that a Florida man mailed over one dozen explosive devices to individuals publicly accused by Donald Trump and his supporters of conspiring against our country.
For what it’s worth, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) says that they have no open investigations into any claims of potential fraud. That doesn’t mean, however, that people on the right won’t continue to make unfounded accusations, claiming that Democrats are attempting to “steal” the election. As we saw just before the election, when Republicans lied about a caravan of South American terrorists headed to our border, there is no line the Republicans will not cross in hopes of retaining power. [Speaking of the caravan, isn’t it weird how it just kind of magically disappeared once we’d cast our votes.]
And it’s not just the likes of Donald Trump and Rick Scott floating these ridiculous ideas. They’re being supported at every turn by the bought-and-paid-for conservative propaganda network. Here, to give you a sense of what we’re up against, is a clip from Wayne Allyn Root’s most recent column in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
…Liberals try to win over voters with “fake news.” When that fails, there’s always “fake votes.” I believe Democrats are stealing elections with fraud — primarily illegal aliens voting. And those elections they can’t steal, they still won’t accept the outcome. Suddenly boxes of votes appear, from only Democrat-controlled districts, with primarily Democrat votes, days after the election.
Wasn’t this the “fake worry” of Democrats for two years now? They were shocked and worried about election integrity and “Russian interference” that never happened. They made it up out of thin air. Actually, Hillary and the DNC paid for it, while spy agencies from Russia, the United Kingdom and Germany created false stories to steal the presidency from Trump.
But now we have real election interference. Many Republican voters in this country don’t believe there is election integrity…
It’s worth pointing out, I think, that the Las Vegas Review-Journal is owned by Trump supporter Sheldon Adelson, whose wife, Miriam Adelson, for some inexplicable reason, will be receiving a Presidential Medal of Freedom on Friday. [When asked about this today, Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist at Public Citizen, said, “The Medal of Freedom has always been awarded based on service, as the award is intended. Trump uniquely envisions government service as a business for self-enrichment, and so it comes as no surprise at all that Trump would award an otherwise honorable medal to Adelson on the grounds of who gives him the most money.”]
It’s terrifying, right? We’ve apparently learned nothing over theses past two years, listening to Donald Trump constantly go on and on about how he would have won the popular vote in 2016, if not for millions upon millions of illegal aliens crossing the border to vote for Clinton. We knew it was a lie. Trump even quietly shut down the presidential commission that was going to prove it to us. But we just keep on allowing the lies to be said… We keep allowing this nonsense to propagate, and, in so doing, we’re making it all the more likely that, come 2020, when Donald Trump is defeated, he makes the claim that the election had been stolen by the Democrats, the globalist Jews, illegal aliens, radical feminists, and terrorists, or some combination of the aforementioned groups. And we cannot allow that to happen. We need to stop this now, and stop it decisively. We cannot keep going down the slippery slope toward civil war.
OK, with that, I will let Virginia Senator Mark Warner have the last word: “If the President actually cared about election integrity, he wouldn’t be tweeting out conspiracy theories, he would tell his Administration to quit blocking the bipartisan Secure Elections Act that we’ve been trying to pass all year.”
Speaking of attempts to address election integrity in the United States, it’s worth mentioning that the Democrats came out today with a statement, saying that, once they take back the gavel in the House, the first bill they vote on will be one that strengthens the Voting Rights Act, establishes automatic voter registration, takes the power to redistrict away from state legislatures, giving it instead to independent commissions. The Republicans will never agree to it, but I like that, for a chance, we’re on the offensive, fighting for something positive that we believe in, instead of just running against Trumpism. This is a good thing.