Fact #1: There is nothing which more thoroughly assumes today's Republican Party than its campaign against voter fraud.
In the cagily termed "audit" it conducted of the 2020 presidential vote in Maricopa, County, a group of Arizona Republicans
A group of Arizona Republicans engaged a private cybersecurity firm, whose "CEO is a known election conspiracy theorist," to conduct an "audit" of the 2000 presidential vote in Maricopa County, which produces by far the greatest number of Democratic votes in the state. Nonetheless
Despite the obvious partisanship of the audit, they found 99 more votes for Biden and 261 fewer votes for Trump — a negligible difference which nonetheless nullifies any claims that Trump should have won the county. Yet Trump has falsely reiterated that they found evidence of fraud and many Republicans in other states, such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, are pushing for similar audits.
Democrats and even many Republicans have spoken out against these partisan audits. Nonetheless, Trump and his supporters continue to push for them and perpetuate the lie that the 2020 election was stolen. In fact, according to a CNN poll, six out of 10 Republicans said that believing that Trump would win the 2020 election was a significant part of what being Republican meant to them.
Earlier this year, Senate Republicans blocked consideration of the pro-democracy Freedom to Vote Act because- well, it was freedom to vote. Then, at the insistence, and assistance, of West Virginia's center-right Democratic senator Joe Manchin, the bill was weakened and transformed into the For the People Act, which was successfully filibustered by the GOP.
The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act passed the House, with support from zero (0) Republicans, a truly impressive wall of opposition to a bill named after one of their recently deceased and allegedly revered colleagues. Even Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger voted against it because, well, they are Republicans. On Wednesday, November 3, that bill drowned in GOP filibuster.
A group of Arizona Republicans in April had engaged a private cybersecurity firm, whose "CEO is a known election conspiracytheorist," to conduct an "audit" of the 2000 presidential vote in Maricopa County, which produces by far the greatest number of Democratic votes in the state. Nonetheless
Despite the obvious partisanship of the audit, they found 99 more votes for Biden and 261 fewer votes for Trump — a negligible difference which nonetheless nullifies any claims that Trump should have won the county. Yet Trump has falsely reiterated that they found evidence of fraud and many Republicans in other states, such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, are pushing for similar audits.
Democrats and even many Republicans have spoken out against these partisan audits. Nonetheless, Trump and his supporters continue to push for them and perpetuate the lie that the 2020 election was stolen. In fact, according to a CNN poll, six out of 10 Republicans said that believing that Trump would win the 2020 election was a significant part of what being Republican meant to them.
Most Republican-controlled states since the election of 2020 have enacted laws to make voting more difficult, and others are trying, though there is virtually no voter fraud. Roughly eight years ago
24 journalism students at twelve universities reviewed some 2,000 public records and identified just six cases of voter impersonation between 2000 and 2012. • Under Republican President George W. Bush, the U.S. Justice Department searched for voter fraud. But in the first three years of the program, just 26 people were convicted or pled guilty to illegal registration or voting. Out of 197,056,035 votes cast in the two federal elections held during that period, the rate of voter fraud was a miniscule 0.00000132 percent.
reviewed cases in Arizona, Ohio, Georgia, Texas and Kansas, where politicians have expressed concern about voter fraud, and found hundreds of allegations but few prosecutions between 2012 and 2016.
Attorneys-general in those states successfully prosecuted 38 cases, though other cases may have been litigated at the county level. At least one-third of those cases involved nonvoters, such as elections officials or volunteers. None of the cases prosecuted was for voter impersonation.
Reputed audits done in several states following GOP whining about the 2020 presidential election revealed similar results.
Voter impersonation fraud, the target of suppressive election laws and subject of GOP ire, is virtually non-existent. But the Republican Party is obsessed with proving to the American public that it does exist. And so it shouldn't be surprising that, as fact #2
The 17-year-old son of Virginia Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin (R) tried to cast a ballot in Tuesday’s gubernatorial election twice despite being too young to vote, Fairfax County officials said in a statement released Friday.
The statement, which identified the teen as Youngkin’s 17-year-old son, emphasized that he did not end up voting and stated that he did not violate any state election laws. The Washington Post is not publishing the teen’s first name because he is a juvenile and has not been charged with a crime.
The teen walked into the voting precinct inside the Great Falls Library on Tuesday, presenting his driver’s license to election officials when asked for a proof of identity, according to Jennifer Chanty, the precinct captain there.
Chanty said in an interview with The Post that she realized who the teen was when she looked at his ID. Upon seeing his age, she said she informed him that he must be at least 18 to be eligible to vote in Virginia. Under Virginia’s election laws, the only time 17-year-olds can vote is in a primary election if they’ll be 18 by the time of the general election.
She said she offered to register him to vote for the next election, but the teen declined and walked out.
About 20 minutes later, the teen returned, insisting that he be allowed to vote, saying that a friend who was also 17 had been allowed to cast a ballot, Chanty said.
“I told him, ‘I don’t know what occurred with your friend, but you are not registered to vote today. You’re welcome to register, but you will not be voting today,’ ” Chanty, a Democrat, recalled saying. A copy of Chanty’s notes she took at the time showed she recorded the encounters as occurring in the morning.
There is virtually no voter fraud in the USA Despite the constant, ongoing efforts of prosecutors, Republican think tanks, Republican pundits and donor class, and the rest of the GOP machinery to prove to the American people voter fraud is rampant, it barely exists. Yet, of all the young people in the state of Virginia, the son of a Republican standing for governor is found to have tried to vote illegally.
This might well have been a Project Veritas operation, if it were a little less clumsy. If young Mr. Youngkin had succeeded, the GOP would flooded conventional and social media with the news (proof!) that Democrats win elections because of massive voter fraud. And because he was caught in the act, the office of the incoming governor gets to blame it on Youngkin's "political opponents." Whomever in the GOP orbit was behind it, the ploy should not have been unexpected, a clever idea poorly executed.
There are coincidences, and there are coincidences. This is neither.
No comments:
Post a Comment