It’s a rhetorical question that needs be asked. How many people will former President Donald Trump and his die-hard base smear because they did not call the election for Trump when President Joe Biden won the electoral college?
After winning in 2016, Trump claimed that he was the victim of voter fraud, which robbed him of a popular vote win against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
After the 2020 election, when I served as a White House correspondent and columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, I heard from Trump supporters who were convinced that Trump won and Joe Biden lost in November. When I’d point out how state recounts did not speak in their favor, they’d tell me that the mechanism to uncover the true count is an “election audit” like the one that just found that Biden won Arizona’s Maricopa County.
The draft audit, as the Arizona Republic reported, did provide some new information: Biden won by a larger number of votes than previously tallied in official counts.
From the story:
Maricopa County Board Chairman Jack Sellers said the overall results in the draft report confirm “the tabulation equipment counted the ballots as they were designed to do, and the results reflect the will of the voters.”
“That should be the end of the story,” he said. “Everything else is just noise.”
It also helps to have a nominee who doesn’t alienate voters in his own party. As the New York Times reported on findings by the Clear Ballot Group.
Their analysis of the choices on each ballot cast showed that Mr. Trump lost Arizona because 74,822 Republicans, including 59,800 in Maricopa County, were unhappy enough with the former president’s performance in office that they decided not to vote for him. Roughly two-thirds of those voters cast ballots for Mr. Biden, the analysis stated, and the remaining third either voted for another candidate, such as the Libertarian Party nominee, or did not vote for president.
Here’s Trump’s statement about the Arizona audit.
Huge findings in Arizona! However, the Fake News Media is already trying to “call it” again for Biden before actually looking at the facts—just like they did in November! The audit has uncovered significant and undeniable evidence of FRAUD! Until we know how and why this happened, our Elections will never be secure. This is a major criminal event and should be investigated by the Attorney General immediately. The Senate’s final report will be released today at 4:00PM ET. I have heard it is far different than that being reported by the Fake News Media.
BTW, Biden won the Electoral College by 306 votes to Trump’s 232. If the audit found reason to flip Arizona’s 11 votes, Biden’s still president having won in a landslide.
Did the left use COVID to game the election? Absolutely, but under cover of law. Smart operatives understand that in this environment, you hire savvy election lawyers to fight abuses. You don’t hire lawyers on the cheap who keep losing.
The fact is, Trump did not act to stop voter fraud. He just talked about it.
After claiming he would have won the 2016 election by a larger margin if not for millions of illegally cast votes for Hillary Clinton, then President Trump established a Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in May 2017. Within a year, Trump shut it down with the complaint that states would not send his panel “basic information relevant to its inquiry.”
Rather than engage in endless legal battles at taxpayer expense, today President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order to dissolve the Commission, and he has asked the Department of Homeland Security to review its initial findings and determine next courses of action.
That’s right. Trump claimed millions of people voted illegally in 2016, then dissolved his election integrity panel within a year when they didn’t produce the goods. He just gave up.
Don’t you think if Trump really believed millions of people voted illegally in 2016, he could have done something more to prove it? Something? Anything?
When I’ve brought the panel up to Trump base, the knee-jerk response here is that Trump’s picks let him down. In other words, they think the fraud abounded, but Trump’s picks could not find it. And whose fault would that be?
So, let’s review the list of Republicans whom the Trump base charge with betraying Trump by not recognizing his fictional victory.
Former Vice President Mike Pence
The U.S. Supreme Court, with special venom for Trump picks.
Nevada Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, who got it right
Michigan Republican state lawmakers Mike Shirkey and Ed McBloom
Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp
Feel free to add more Trump scapegoats in comment section.
It’s my belief that Trump dissolved his election integrity panel in less than a year because he knew it would come up empty. I think that’s preferable to believing he was convinced that millions voted illegally, and he chose not to pursue widespread voter fraud.
Debra J. Saunders is a fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Chapman Center for Citizen Leadership. Contact her at dsaunders@discovery.org. Sign up below for alerts for future posts.
Hey Debora why don't you link the rest of the Draft Audit, Besides the recount numbers? You know those pesky numbers that show the County in AZ had a bunch of problems. You know like where it said there were 17 thousand unreported duplicates. Or the funny thing that happened where all the electronic data was deleted the day before the Audit. Oh look here is a link that everyone can read for themselves. https://www.azsenaterepublicans.com/echomail-report
Hey Debora why don't you link the rest of the Draft Audit, Besides the recount numbers? You know those pesky numbers that show the County in AZ had a bunch of problems. You know like where it said there were 17 thousand unreported duplicates. Or the funny thing that happened where all the electronic data was deleted the day before the Audit. Oh look here is a link that everyone can read for themselves. https://www.azsenaterepublicans.com/echomail-report