Tag Archives: Voter fraud

national news, political news

Voter fraud probe runs into trouble … good deal!

States across the nation aren’t playing ball with a task force created to find a problem that likely doesn’t exist.

To which I say, “Good for them.”

Donald J. Trump alleged — without foundation — that voter fraud was rampant across the land during the 2016 presidential election. You’ll recall that he said “millions of illegal immigrants” voted for Hillary Rodham Clinton, thus giving her a substantial popular vote margin over the president. This has been one of the countless lies that the president has told since he launched his political career in the summer of 2015.

So, he sought the formation of a task force to get to the root of the problem. States, though, aren’t giving in to this — if you’ll allow me to use this term — witch hunt in search of problem.

The White House commission led by Vice President Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach have asked all the states and the District of Columbia to turn over records of voters, including birth dates, the last four Social Security digits and party affiliation. Roughly half the states have said “no.” Even Texas, as friendly toward Trump as any state, has agreed only to turn over certain publicly held information; Social Security information and dates of birth won’t be turned over.

A good number of states refusing to comply, incidentally, happen to states that Trump won. So this isn’t a strictly partisan boycott of this ridiculous notion. As The Hill reported: “In the event I were to receive correspondence from the Commission … My reply would be: They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi is a great state to launch from,” Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, a Republican, said in a Friday statement.

The voter fraud commission is trying to reel in a red herring. Indeed, Kris Kobach is known to be something of a conspiracy theorist who believes voter fraud has reached epidemic proportions in his state and across the land.

Independent studies have revealed only minuscule numbers of people voting illegally, certainly not in numbers sufficient to decide electoral outcomes nationally.

I’m sensing a showdown is on the horizon. I’m going to pull for the states to stand their ground. As Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Grimes, a Democrat, has noted, the commission was formulated on a “sham premise.”

national news, political news

On the hunt for millions of illegal votes? Good luck with that

Donald John Trump has made a number of scurrilous accusations since entering political life.

One of them involves an allegation that “millions of illegal aliens” cast votes for Hillary Clinton in 2016, which gave her the 3 million popular vote “victory” over the president.

What has the president done to bolster that accusation? He has appointed a voter-fraud conspiracy theorist to lead an investigation.

Welcome to center stage, Kris Kobach.

The Kansas secretary of state has been one of the leaders in this movement that impugns the integrity of the nation’s electoral system. He has contended there are incidents of massive voter fraud, with non-citizens casting ballots in races in Kansas and Missouri. Now he gets to prove it’s all true in a national level.

What utter crap!

This has the earmarks of a witch hunt and is the kind of thing that in the end only will further erode the credibility of a president who’s prone to fabricate conspiracies and “fake news.”

Record is full of fabrications

Trump has done so repeatedly since he rode down that escalator to announce his presidential candidacy in the summer of 2015. Barack Obama wasn’t qualified to run for president because he wasn’t a “natural born U.S. citizen”? Thousands of Muslims cheering the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11? Ted Cruz’s father’s alleged complicity in President Kennedy’s murder? Those millions of illegal votes cast for Hillary in 2016? President Barack Obama wiretapping the Trump campaign office?

Now he has selected a fellow conspiracy nut to get to the bottom of a problem that does not exist.

Give me a break.

national news, political news

Honeymoon? What honeymoon?

Talk about rocky rollouts.

Presidents of the United States take command in what we call a “peaceful transition” of power. It’s supposed to be seamless. It’s intended to miss nary a beat. One guy steps off the inaugural podium as the former president and the new guy takes over as if he’s been there all along.

Then we have the transition from Barack H. Obama to Donald J. Trump.

What a mess!

As near as I can tell, the former president kept his end of the bargain, seeking to provide all the necessary support, advice and counsel to the new president.

What’s happened? Oh … let’s see.

* The new president issued an executive order that calls for a temporary ban on refugees coming here from seven mostly Muslim countries; then a federal judge strikes it down and his decision is upheld by a federal appeals court. Up next? The U.S. Supreme Court, more than likely.

* Now we have the national security adviser, Michael Flynn, quitting over allegations that he engaged in improper negotiations with Russians regarding sanctions that the Obama administration had leveled against them. The problem is threefold: Flynn might have violated federal law by talking out of turn to the Russians before Trump took office; he apparently lied to the vice president about what he said; and Trump needs to reveal whether he knew about the talks as they were occurring — or even whether he sanctioned them!

* A few Trump Cabinet appointees are being confirmed by narrow margins in the Senate. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was confirmed, in fact, by a tie-breaking vote cast by Vice President Pence.

* There are reports of civil servants sweating bullets about their futures within the Trump administration.

* Oh, and the president apparently engaged in a free-wheeling discussion the other day — in the open, in front of unauthorized personnel — with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe about what the United States might do in response to a North Korean missile launch.

* Trump keeps repeating the phony mantra about alleged voter fraud by illegal immigrants casting ballots for Hillary Clinton. Proof? He hasn’t produced anything!

It ain’t supposed to start like this, man.

The military uses a popular acronym to describe certain circumstances: FUBAR; the cleaned-up version is translated to mean “fouled up beyond all recognition.”

There you have it.

political news

Trump aide sings the boss’s tune

Donald J. Trump clearly has much to learn about being president of the United States.

However, he’s got one task down pat: He has instructed his senior White House staff to utter the same lies the boss does.

Senior policy adviser Stephen Miller was in the dock today, telling TV news talk show hosts the lie Trump keeps spouting about massive voter fraud in the 2016 presidential election.

Miller failed to provide a shred of evidence to prove what he said, which is that vehicle loads of illegal voters were taken to New Hampshire to vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The proof? Miller didn’t provide any. “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos sought repeatedly to get Miller to prove what he alleged. Miller came up empty. He offered nothing.

Indeed, a Federal Elections commissioner has demanded that Trump provide evidence of the allegations he has leveled against state and local elections officials.

Miller has promoted the same falsehoods as the boss. He has continued to delegitimize the electoral process by saying things that either (a) are demonstrably false or (b) cannot be proven.

Absent any proof, many of us are left to conclude that none exists.

Meanwhile, the president continues to perform his role of liar in chief — and his lieutenants are following his shameful example.

national news, political news

President-elect shows how to win ugly

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Even in victory, the president-elect of the United States is continuing to defame, degrade and denigrate elections officials.

Donald J. Trump now contends — without a shred of substance — that millions of voters in California and New Hampshire cast their ballots illegally. He presumes, of course, that the illegal ballots were cast in favor of Hillary Rodham Clinton, who Trump defeated to win the presidential election.

With victory in hand, Trump now has decided to ratchet up the absurd, baseless and idiotic assertion that the election was “rigged” to favor his opponent.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-claims-with-no-evidence-that-%e2%80%98millions-of-people%e2%80%99-voted-illegally/ar-AAkP3mF?li=BBnb7Kz

Does this clown have any proof of what he’s alleging? No. He doesn’t.

He is continuing this ridiculous habit of making allegations with no basis upon which to back them up.

Trump’s list of people and groups that he’s insulted and defamed certainly must include the state and local elections officials he now has asserted are corrupt.

Can you even imagine what this guy would be saying if he had lost the election? He won it fairly and openly. Trump is going to be the next president.

Why in the world he makes these ridiculous assertions is totally beyond many of us.

You’ve heard of sore losers, right? We’re now witnessing the antics of a seriously sore winner.

national news, political news

Declaring war on the democratic process

democracy

It’s rare in the extreme to see and hear a candidate for high public office do what Donald J. Trump has done.

The Republican nominee for president of the United States not only is campaigning against his Democratic foe, Hillary Rodham Clinton, he’s also declaring war against the political system that is likely to elect her to the highest office in the land.

As many of us have noted so often during this election year, in any other election cycle, such a preposterous campaign tactic would be an immediate disqualifier.

Not with Trump, the huckster extraordinaire.

This clown in chief has managed to cast aspersions on the very system of electing people to high public office. I do not believe he’ll be able to win the election. However, he has fired up the base of his once-great party to the point that nearly half of his fellow Republicans believe that a Clinton victory will be the result of a “rigged” election.

This is scary stuff, folks.

Some of them are talking about open rebellion if/when Clinton wins. What’s worse is that Trump is fueling that hideous narrative by suggesting he won’t honor the results if/when Clinton gets elected.

The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank writes that Clinton’s strategy now is to not only defeat Trump, but to “humiliate” him by pressing hard in normally GOP states such as Utah, Arizona and, yes, Texas.

Historians are going to think long and hard when they write about the implications of this election. Clinton and Trump both describe it as the most  consequential election in generations. I agree with that, but perhaps not for the stated reasons they believe.

The consequence quite likely may lie in what it means moving past Election Day — and whether Donald Trump’s declaration of war against democracy itself will result in a further undermining of our electoral system.

media news, national news, political news

Ponder when elections are ‘rigged’

donald-trump4

Donald J. Trump is playing the “rigged election”  card as if it’s a new gambit.

The Republican presidential nominee says the electoral system is “rigged.” He says voter fraud is rampant at polling places. He blames the media for “rigging” its coverage of his battle with Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I must add, too, that he says all this without providing a scintilla of credible evidence.

Well, way back in the early days of the GOP primary, Trump lost the Iowa caucus to Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. His excuse then? It was “rigged,” he said. Cruz’s team stole that one from Trump, said the eventual party nominee.

The rigged election stuff is the mantra of someone who’s going to lose. That’s all it is.

As for the media bias he keeps harping on, I feel a need to mention only this: The media gave Trump invaluable free advertising and publicity throughout his march to the GOP nomination. He called a press event? The media were there. He made a statement of any kind, carrying any kind of weight? The media covered it like a blanket. Trump would fire off an accusation or call an opponent a schoolyard-style name? Why, the media were on that, too.

Trump is about to lose his first and likely final campaign for public office. He is sounding like someone who doesn’t know how to lose with grace and class.

national news, political news

‘Rigging’ depends on who’s winning

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Donald J. Trump’s assertions about “rigging” an election cuts to the heart of our democratic traditions.

The Republican presidential nominee, though, cares not one single bit about tradition, as his campaign has demonstrated time and again for more than a year.

He says the media are biased against him, that they’re conspiring with Hillary Clinton’s campaign to undermine his effort.

Nice try, Don. The media don’t have time to “conspire” against anyone or anything.

He talks about “widespread voter fraud,” which could rank as among the biggest lies of his campaign. There is no evidence anywhere of “widespread” fraud. Of the millions of ballots cast over the past decade-plus, officials have uncovered fewer than 100 cases of people voting fraudulently.

Trump’s desperate 11th-hour assertions are undermining the very process that the GOP nominee used to secure his party’s presidential nomination.

That’s right. Trump benefited from the very same “rigged” system that he now condemns as working against him.

Has anyone else noticed that in the past two weeks we’ve heard absolutely not a single positive policy statement from this guy? His rallies are rife with condemnation of his opponent and accusations that she’s “on drugs,” that she “lacks the stamina” to be commander in chief, that she’s “corrupt,” and that she enabled her husband to become the “worst abuser” of women in the history of American politics.

Nov. 8 cannot get here soon enough.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/301280-poll-41-percent-of-voters-think-election-could-be-stolen

political news, State news

Voter ID: a solution in search of a problem

vote fraud

Let’s talk for a moment about voter fraud.

If there’s an overblown, overhyped and overstated problem with the American electoral system, it has to be voter fraud.

Even in Texas, ,which has become somewhat legendary because of one instance of voter fraud. It occurred in 1948 when Duval County in South Texas supposedly recorded more votes than registered voters. The inflated number of votes allegedly pushed a young political candidate, Democrat Lyndon Johnson, over the top in his party primary runoff contest for the U.S. Senate.

How many instances of ballot-box chicanery have occurred in Texas since then? Damn few.

Republicans, though, have seized on voter fraud as a compelling national political problem. They keep insisting that Americans must prove they are eligible to vote by showing photo ID documents when they go to the polls.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/the-integrity-of-our-elections/

I don’t necessarily object personally to showing photo ID when I go vote. I am able to present a valid driver’s license. A lot of Americans, though, do not drive; they don’t own passports; they don’t have licenses to carry concealed weapons. They’re out of luck.

Some courts have ruled that voter ID laws, therefore, to be inherently unconstitutional.

The most objectionable element of this discussion, though, has been the canard put forward that the electoral system is corrupt. Fear mongers — now led by Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump — keep insisting that illegal immigrants are voting by the thousands to elect Democrats to public office.

As Erica Grieder writes in her blog for Texas Monthly: “It’s true that voter fraud is real. It’s even true that there have been recorded instances of people passing themselves off as someone else in order to cast a fraudulent vote, which is the specific form of fraud that laws requiring photo ID might prevent. But that crime is not even remotely common, nor do Americans have any real cause to worry about elections being stolen in the most labor-intensive way imaginable.”

Trump is now predicting that the presidential election will be “rigged.” How does he know this to be true? He just says it.

Those who are following his futile efforts to change the subject away from his abject ignorance about anything relating to government and public policy, are buying into it.

national news, political news, State news

‘Rampant’ voter fraud in Texas? Not even close

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott describes the instances of voter fraud in this state as “rampant.”

The state, he said, has sought to curb the epidemic of voter fraud by requiring voters to produce photo ID — driver’s licenses, passports, etc. — when they go to the polling place.

The Texas Tribune’s Ross Ramsey, though, has shot down the governor’s assertion with an interesting analysis of Abbott’s challenge to a President Obama’s critique of Texas’ historically poor voter turnout.

The evidence of fraud is “scant,” according to Ramsey.

Here’s part of what Ramsey writes: “A study done by News21, an investigative journalism project at Arizona State University, looked at open records from Texas and other states for the years 2000-2011 and found 104 cases of voter fraud had been alleged in Texas over that decade.

“Chew on this: If you only count the Texans who voted in November general elections — skipping Democratic and Republican primaries and also special and constitutional elections — 35.8 million people voted during the period covered by the ASU study.

“They found 104 cases of voter fraud among 35.8 million votes cast. That’s fewer than three glitches per 1 million votes.”

Does that fit the description of “rampant” voter fraud?

Not exactly.

Obama made the point at a fundraiser the other evening that Texas remains one of the nation’s poorest-turnout states. I am not going to blame the voter ID push for driving down the turnout. Suffice to say, though, that Texas can — and should — do more to promote greater turnout.

I’ve lived in Texas for 32 years. I have been watching, reporting and commenting on the political process here for that entire time. I have no recollection ever of the state — from the governor’s office on down — launching a concerted effort to drive up voter participation.

There has seemed over all that time to be a sense of complacency, that the state puts little emphasis on greater turnout.

“The folks who are governing the good state of Texas aren’t interested in having more people participate,” the president told The Texas Tribune’s Evan Smith at South by Southwest Interactive.

Abbott’s response? He trotted out the allegation of “rampant” voter fraud. The numbers don’t add up.