And in Texas?….as in Florida….
The people getting caught are Republicans….
Not Democrats….
And Trump’s rants continue jumping from state to state after it is proven his views ARE Bull Shit…..
Barring future developments, the political legacy of former Texas acting secretary of state David Whitley will not be particularly favorable. Whitley, who resigned on Monday, is best known nationally for levying a charge of rampant voter fraud in his state — a charge that remains unproven months later and which has been shown to have been based to a substantial degree on erroneous assumptions.
There is, however, a certain magic in making allegations about widespread voter fraud, particularly from a position of authority. It has been a Republican white whale for decades, without any direct evidence of its existence. For the current Republican president, the idea that elections have been influenced by rampant fraud has become a near-obsession, with President Trump embracing rumors of fraud even in the most abstract, unfounded strokes.
So Trump readily embraced Whitley’s claims, retweeting a summary allegation from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and tweeting his own variant on the numbers after seeing a report on the Fox News show “Fox & Friends.”
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump58,000 non-citizens voted in Texas, with 95,000 non-citizens registered to vote. These numbers are just the tip of the iceberg. All over the country, especially in California, voter fraud is rampant. Must be stopped. Strong voter ID! @foxandfriends
A central problem with Whitley’s allegation is that his assessment of the number of noncitizens who allegedly had voted didn’t take into account that those individuals may have — and many had — become citizens before they cast a ballot. (As we reported in February, nearly 1 million Texas residents became citizens during the decade from 2007 to 2016, a period that overlaps with Whitley’s allegations.)
The Texas fraud debacle might, to another politician, have been humbling, an example of the dangers of jumping on enticing allegations before they have been vetted. But Trump has repeatedly demonstrated that this isn’t a lesson he’s interested in learning.
Consider the aside in his tweet about the Texas allegations, randomly looping in California. The state was the subject of his first post-2016 allegation about the existence of rampant voter fraud.
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrumpSerious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California – so why isn’t the media reporting on this? Serious bias – big problem!
This isn’t just Trump.
As usual, you let the Republican Party off way too easy.
Republicans have been on this voter fraud binge for years.Trump is just going with the flow so to speak.This stuff was going on long before Trump appeared on the scene and will be going on long after he exits the stage.
I agree that voter fraud and more worrisome , voter suppression has been a SOP for Republicans for a LONG time….
Of course because Trump mentions it?
It’s on the media front pages…
Basically, the Republicans have been doing in recent decades what Southern Democrats did for nearly a century: looking for ways of suppressing or lowering the votes of their opponents.
Instead of literacy tests and grandfather clauses (if your grandfather could vote, so can you), there are Voter Identification, name matches (harder for Hispanics as their family status changes) and — carrying over from the Dixiecrat practice — bars against voting by ex-felons.
I agree with Jack here. Trump is simply echoing the long held Republican talking point that more voters (especially minority and urban voters) means more voter “fraud”.
There’s absolutely no proof of it now, nor was there 15 yrs ago when Trump was still a Democrat and Republicans were claiming “fraud” every time they saw a live of non white people at the polls.
So do I Scott
He ‘s just more up front about it….
Needless to say I strongly disagree with the rhetoric being used here. There is ample polling data showing vast majorities of Americans support Voter ID laws. IDs are required for so many other things in American life. It is nearly impossible to make a case, how with accommodations, this would disenfranchise anyone.
Comparisons to poll taxes, etc is way off base. The left and Trump parrot each other by speaking about these matters in such extreme ways.
Of course Trump is overstating the issue and that is wrong, but so are those who would minimize any sort of voter fraud or think that such instances should not be combated.
Voter ID requirements drawn up to EXCLUDE whole classes of people ARE illegal and just a method of voter suppression…
A 75 year old that can’t drive should not be denied the right to vote because they don’t have a drivers license…
Nor should that apply to a college student that has a school ID, but doesn’t drive
Let’s get a reality check on this…
You can get an ID that is not a drivers license, etc.
CG?
Some states are VERY specific about their definition of ID….
Ok, and it has nothing to do with driving.
State IDs can and should be had by all free of charge.
They are required for many things in our lives already.
I don’t have a problem with requiring an ID to vote as long as a state makes such ids readily available.
I have a problem with Republican Officials claiming massive voting fraud and then not being able to back it up.
Just yesterday a Texas voting official resigned after being unable to substantiate claims of thousands of illegal voters and we all know the story of Kansas Republican Kris Kobach who,after months of hyperbolic blather about vote “fraud,” was able to identify like six instances of illegal voting,mostly over technical issues
The plain fact is voting fraud is not a widespread problem.
I personally favor twenty four hour voting for a week up until Election Day.Let all who want to vote,vote.
Well, then we agree on most of that. IDs can be provided, free of charge, to those who do not already have them.
Just not the 24 hour around the clock thing. It would be pretty hard to staff that.
The biggest issues with voter fraud will be with local elections and most likely will relate to the equivalent of elections between two Democrats or two Republicans.
Staffing?
I can’t think of anything more important than our elections.
The outlay in money will be minuscule compared to the amounts spent on matters of much less importance.
Of course,it won’t happen…But “staffing” has nothing to do with it and it gets back to the real issue.Lots of people in this country,despite their public positions, decidedly Do Not want everyone to vote who is entitled to.
You think you can find people to work a graveyard shift at a polling place for a week?
Not to overly simplify this, but senior citizens tend to have bed times they like to stick to. Are governments going to pay younger people to give up their “real jobs” for a week plus to man polling stations for every primary/runoff/local election, etc?
There is a time and place for early voting, including on the weekends, but let’s not overdo it.
Everyone who is entitled to vote (which as a matter of contention these days, we should be willing to say does not include non-citizens) should have the right to vote, but only once per election, and only on the ballot that matches up with their specific precinct which corresponds to primary residence.
and are there jurisdictions that do not allow ballots to be returned via mail?
One can certainly vote 24/7 in the comfort of their home that way if they legitimately cannot make it to their polling place. That’s how I voted when I was in college.
So you would prefer that people have t wait in line for hours to exercise their right to vote because the dates don’t want to spend some extra money to pay people to man the polls?
I see I see.
CG is of course still a typucal Republican. He views higher turnout as detrimental to his party’s fortunes. As does Donald Trump.
I’m all for high turnout but that cannot be enforced by law. People have to be self-motivated to actually vote. It is certainly easier to vote in the U.S. now than it ever has been before in our history. There should be no dispute over that.
Trump is the one who wants and relies on “low info” voters.
If you want a Democrat to win in 2020, you should probably want a lower than average turnout.
There really shouldn’t be a reason for someone to have to wait “hours.” If there is a problem in a specific area, that should be addressed if it means opening up additional polling places, etc.
But I do think a huge part of the problem of “long wait times” in urban areas are that so many poll-workers tend to be no-shows on Election Day (which would include intentional no-shows by those who take the Republican election judge slots and then are told by Democrat organizations to stay home.)… and I assume the same could happen vice versa in other areas.
So, you have much back-up and in some cases very poorly trained election workers in urban areas.
No one should have to wait hours to vote.
State governments shaould be required to adequately fund elections.
If the pay was more there would be lots of people willing to work the polls .Some States now have moved to mail in ballots.
There are all sorts of solutions to voting problems.
What is lacking is the will,while we spend much more time worrying about the rather minor problem of ”voter fraud.”
And that speaks volumes.
Who got caught for something in Florida? james seems to be saying a Republican had a voter fraud issue in Florida.
I know after the last midterm, there was ample evidence of sheer incompetence (not necessarily fraud as some were quick to claim) in the Broward County office, leading to the eventual dismissal of the Clerk there, who was a Democrat. Republicans had to be very vocal about the counting issues there in order to make sure the outcome was fair.
It is also true that the ballot design there, done by Democrats, might have been confusing in such a way to possibly cost Nelson a statewide win. Possibly.
And that’s a good point.
Too often “voter fraud” becomes sort of a catchall for general voting problems of which the incompetence of election officials is one of the biggest.
In Charleston, most of those who man the polls are Seniors,some well into their seventies.Most are competent,Still. at that age a lot of people slow up and are simply not as sharp.They pay them$65 for the day which can last fifteen or so hours so it really isn’t that much money.
All efforts to get better pay for poll workers have come to naught,yet outrage is expressed at some people for the incompetence displayed .
Would be humorous if it wasn’t so sad.
I’ve been involved in the efforts to recruit/assign election judges, etc. and 70s would be on the young side here (not counting High School students who do it for school credit)
It’s only going to get harder to find people who want to spend so many hours doing that who are reasonably competent and in some parts of the country, there tend to be tons of no-shows on Election Day which lead to back-ups and bigger lines/wait times, etc.
Check me if i’m Wrong ?
Is it Florida or NC where the guy doing the ballot collection and mark up’s has be charged with a crime…
There was a women who acknowledge it..
But I believe the GOP guy who directed her is in trouble…
You are thinking of something in NC where a Republican operative was charged with ballot harvesting in terms of absentee ballots in a Congressional district that is still open pending a special election.
It is illegal there (as it should be) but in some states it is not and Democrats have likely used it to their advantage.