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More news and perspectives on the most recent treasonous election rigging by the GOP from voter suppression, to rigging their districts to win with less votes, to making it difficult - and inconvenient - to vote for everyone, to just plain refusing to count votes out of fear of losing
Election highlights voter suppression efforts in GA, ND We saw example after example of an electoral system designed to make it harder for people to vote - voter ID laws, broken machines, registration problems, and insanely long lines.
Republicans did anti-American and undemocratic things that should have ended their career immediately...
Now That's What I Call Bullshit We Won't Forget | Full Frontal on TBS
Every campaign has it's bullshit that we forget and move on from, but now you can hold on to every hit from this 2018 midterm season with one convenient video!
The key to understanding the Republicans election rigging is that they win considerable more seats with LESS votes than their opponents. In other words, this is not a fair system of government which makes sense since GOP isn't a democratic institution but a tyrannical and authoritarian one.
That Went Ok! | November 7, 2018 Act 1 | Full Frontal on TBS
We're reluctant to ever trust that an election will be good or fun again, but Tuesday night went kind of ok! (Also, Sessions was forced to resign and Trump accosted Acosta. What a ride!)
Clearly the GOP should not have the Senate in a Democracy based on the American Constitution (GOP should be seen as unAmerican and thus treasonous period)
Gerrymandering: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) - Lawmakers often reshape voting districts to shift the balance of political power. That's unfair to voters, even those of us with questionable judgment.
Trump and His Fellow Grifters Lie About "Voter Fraud": A Closer Look
Seth takes a closer look President Trump becoming more lawless amid a power grab at the Justice Department and a recount in Florida.
The good news and bad news on gerrymandering
All these years under Republican rule and Florida still can't do elections! Does fit the Republican pattern though.
A Florida Recount? Where Have We Seen This Before? - In what appears to be the worst 'Back to the Future' sequel yet, another election is heading toward a recount in Florida.
Republicans trying to stop vote count in Florida Republicans from the president on down are united in their attempt to stop counting votes in Florida's senate and gubernatorial elections before the final tally.
Florida goes into automatic recount by State law and right wing claims counting citizens votes is wrong! I guess they did so much voter fraud that they were worried that the Democrats would win on a recount!
Sean Hannity says efforts to count all Florida votes “purposefully violated the federal law and Florida state law"
Reality discredits fraud allegations from Trump, Florida’s Scott
Hypocrisy: Florida officials bent the rules for voters in Republican county
Democrats fight to count every vote in Georgia - Stacey Abrams' campaign manager joins Chris Hayes to discuss the fight raging in Georgia over making sure every vote in the governor's race is counted.
Stacey Abrams, beaten but not defeated, vows voting rights fight Rachel Maddow reports on Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams' non-concession speech in which she acknowledged that she was out of legal options to contest Brian Kemp's victory, but vowed continued legal action over Georgia's voting rights abuses under Kemp.
Stacey Abrams V. Everybody | November 7, 2018 Act 2 | Full Frontal on TBS
Stacey Abrams broke down barriers, knocked on doors, and also had Oprah! Brian Kemp, however, had the much more American strategy of racism, which is likely to bring him the governorship.
Trump thinks Georgia race was ‘stacked against’ Kemp (it wasn’t)
In his latest Fox News interview, which aired yesterday, Donald Trump was eager to defend the Republican Party’s poor showing in the midterm elections by arguing that he personally looked good. The president was specifically excited about Georgia’s gubernatorial race, which ended late on Friday afternoon with Brian Kemp’s (R) victory.
More news and perspectives on the most recent treasonous election rigging by the GOP from voter suppression, to rigging their districts to win with less votes, to making it difficult - and inconvenient - to vote for everyone, to just plain refusing to count votes out of fear of losing
Election highlights voter suppression efforts in GA, ND We saw example after example of an electoral system designed to make it harder for people to vote - voter ID laws, broken machines, registration problems, and insanely long lines.
Republicans did anti-American and undemocratic things that should have ended their career immediately...
Now That's What I Call Bullshit We Won't Forget | Full Frontal on TBS
Every campaign has it's bullshit that we forget and move on from, but now you can hold on to every hit from this 2018 midterm season with one convenient video!
The key to understanding the Republicans election rigging is that they win considerable more seats with LESS votes than their opponents. In other words, this is not a fair system of government which makes sense since GOP isn't a democratic institution but a tyrannical and authoritarian one.
We're reluctant to ever trust that an election will be good or fun again, but Tuesday night went kind of ok! (Also, Sessions was forced to resign and Trump accosted Acosta. What a ride!)
Clearly the GOP should not have the Senate in a Democracy based on the American Constitution (GOP should be seen as unAmerican and thus treasonous period)
Gerrymandering: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) - Lawmakers often reshape voting districts to shift the balance of political power. That's unfair to voters, even those of us with questionable judgment.
More news and information;
Trump and His Fellow Grifters Lie About "Voter Fraud": A Closer Look
Seth takes a closer look President Trump becoming more lawless amid a power grab at the Justice Department and a recount in Florida.
The good news and bad news on gerrymandering
For those concerned about gerrymandering and its effects on our democracy, the 2018 elections offered some good news and some bad news.
The good news is, a lot of voters appear to be sick of it. Michigan voters, for example, approved sweeping election changes, including the creation of an independent redistricting commission that will be responsible for drawing congressional district lines.
In Colorado and Missouri, voters agreed to overhaul the redistricting process to end gerrymandering. (Utah may have done the same thing, but votes on the state’s Proposition 4 are still being tallied.)
The bad news is, gerrymandered districts still exist across much of the country. Cleveland.com reported yesterday:
[Republicans in Ohio’s state legislature] scored their wins for 63 percent of the seats while collecting just over 50 percent of the total vote.This is a lot like what happened in Ohio’s 16 congressional districts, where Republicans won 75 percent of the seats with just 52 percent of the overall vote.These are two fresh examples of how skillfully gerrymandered legislative districts can sway the balance of power – especially when one party is in full control of drawing the maps as was the case for the current districts.
Regular readers may recall that Ohio policymakers approved some modest reforms to the redistricting process in May, but those changes won’t be implemented until after the 2020 Census.
Of course, the Buckeye State isn’t the only one where gerrymandering was an issue. Mother Jones’ Ari Berman reported yesterday that in Wisconsin, Democratic candidates managed to win a majority of the state Assembly votes, but thanks to the lines drawn by Republicans, it’s the GOP that will hold a majority of the seats.
The Washington Post also reported this week, “Majorities of voters in at least three battleground states – Pennsylvania, Michigan and North Carolina – chose a Democrat to represent them in the state’s House of Representatives. Yet in all three states, Republicans maintained majority control over the chamber despite winning only a minority of votes.”
A separate Washington Post piece highlighted a similar imbalance in North Carolina at the congressional level.
These fights, however, are far from over. Not only are more and more Americans souring on gerrymandered maps, but reform advocates are turning to the judiciary with renewed optimism about court-imposed changes. There’s a new lawsuit in North Carolina, for example, that appears likely to reach the state Supreme Court, and as a Slate piece explained this week, “The case could give Democrats a real shot at retaking the legislature in 2020, or at least contesting it on an even playing field.”
All these years under Republican rule and Florida still can't do elections! Does fit the Republican pattern though.
A Florida Recount? Where Have We Seen This Before? - In what appears to be the worst 'Back to the Future' sequel yet, another election is heading toward a recount in Florida.
Republicans trying to stop vote count in Florida Republicans from the president on down are united in their attempt to stop counting votes in Florida's senate and gubernatorial elections before the final tally.
Florida goes into automatic recount by State law and right wing claims counting citizens votes is wrong! I guess they did so much voter fraud that they were worried that the Democrats would win on a recount!
Sean Hannity says efforts to count all Florida votes “purposefully violated the federal law and Florida state law"
SEAN HANNITY (HOST): Like everything else, where is equal justice under the law? Equal application of our laws? There's an emergency hearing over this race going on right now in Broward County and you know, if you're gonna follow the law, it is clear that they have purposefully violated the federal law and Florida state law.
Previously:
Sean Hannity ties Florida recount to Fusion GPS and dossier, says “somebody needs to go to jail”
Right-wing media claim Democrats are trying to “steal” Florida elections by insisting all votes be counted
Fox & Friends contradicts itself on Florida vote count
Reality discredits fraud allegations from Trump, Florida’s Scott
Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) aren’t the only ones who’ve peddled Election-related conspiracy theories – Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Marco Rubio (R) have, alas, dipped their toes in the same misguided waters – but the president and the governor have been more aggressive than most and have done the most damage to their credibility.
Let’s start with Scott, who has a dwindling lead against Sen. Bill Nelson (D), and who dispatched Florida law enforcement officials to find evidence to back up his ideas. That didn’t turn out well.
State election monitors in Broward County told The Miami Herald on Saturday that they’ve seen no evidence of voter fraud. And Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg, a Democrat, said he has seen no evidence of voter fraud in the county. In addition, the state agency tasked with overseeing elections said it is not investigating any claims of voter fraud.
It’s almost as if the governor publicly raised the prospect of “rampant fraud” as part of a panic-induced public-relations scheme, rather than based on meaningful proof of wrongdoing.
After Florida law enforcement told the public that there’s no evidence of fraud, Scott went to Fox News to once again raise the prospect of fraud.
All of which looked pretty bad for the governor – though the president’s take may have been slightly worse.
Hypocrisy: Florida officials bent the rules for voters in Republican county
Voters in Bay County in Florida’s panhandle, as expected, heavily supported Republican candidates, with more than 72% of locals supporting Ron DeSantis’ (R) gubernatorial campaign and nearly 74% backing Rick Scott’s (R) U.S. Senate campaign.
There is some question, however, about whether some of those votes were consistent with Florida’s election laws. Politico reported yesterday:
The election supervisor in hurricane-wracked Bay County allowed some voters to illegally cast ballots by email – an act specifically prohibited by Gov. Rick Scott when he issued an emergency order to expand voting opportunities there after the storm.Despite the prohibition, Bay County Election Supervisor Mark Andersen says he stands by his decision in the Republican-rich county after Hurricane Michael. In all, he said, 147 voters returned ballots through email but only 10 were purely email-to-email interactions. In the other cases, voters used fax machines to email their ballots in, which is currently permitted by state law for overseas voters.
Obviously, circumstances matter. Bay County was hit hard by Hurricane Michael, and local communities are still struggling to recover. Officials in the area made a conscious choice to – let’s be charitable – bend the rules, allowing some voters in the country to cast ballots in ways that fall outside state election laws.
My point is not that those voters should be punished or that their votes should be discounted. I am curious, though, about Republicans’ apparent disinterest in how Bay County administered the election.
Rick Scott, for example, has been only too pleased to peddle absurd conspiracy theories about “widespread fraud” in south Florida, specifically in counties that vote heavily Democratic. The Republican’s claims, echoed by Donald Trump, quickly fell apart when Scott was asked to substantiate his allegations.
But about 500 miles to the north, we can now say with some certainty that voters in a heavily Republican district did, in fact, cast ballots in ways that conflict with Florida law.
Democrats fight to count every vote in Georgia - Stacey Abrams' campaign manager joins Chris Hayes to discuss the fight raging in Georgia over making sure every vote in the governor's race is counted.
Stacey Abrams, beaten but not defeated, vows voting rights fight Rachel Maddow reports on Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams' non-concession speech in which she acknowledged that she was out of legal options to contest Brian Kemp's victory, but vowed continued legal action over Georgia's voting rights abuses under Kemp.
Stacey Abrams V. Everybody | November 7, 2018 Act 2 | Full Frontal on TBS
Stacey Abrams broke down barriers, knocked on doors, and also had Oprah! Brian Kemp, however, had the much more American strategy of racism, which is likely to bring him the governorship.
Trump thinks Georgia race was ‘stacked against’ Kemp (it wasn’t)
In his latest Fox News interview, which aired yesterday, Donald Trump was eager to defend the Republican Party’s poor showing in the midterm elections by arguing that he personally looked good. The president was specifically excited about Georgia’s gubernatorial race, which ended late on Friday afternoon with Brian Kemp’s (R) victory.
Referring to some of Stacey Abrams’ (D) high-profile supporters, Trump told Fox News’ Chris Wallace, “I won against President Obama and Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama in a great state called Georgia for the governor. And it was all stacked against Brian and I was the one that went for Brian and Brian won.”
I can appreciate at some level why the president is eager to boast about the results, but the idea that “it was all stacked against” Brian Kemp is demonstrably ridiculous. In fact, the exact opposite is true: it was all stacked in Kemp’s favor, thanks to Kemp’s own efforts to ensure his own success. Mother Jones’ Ari Berman summarized this nicely:
There were a multitude of voting problems in the gubernatorial race between Republican Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams. Eligible voters didn’t show up on the registration rolls or were purged by the state. Thousands of Georgians had their registrations put on hold and weren’t sure if they’d be able to vote. Some voters were wrongly flagged as non-citizens; others had their ballots rejected because poll workers told them they had the wrong ID. Hundreds of polling places were shuttered before the election, and other precincts had four-hour lines. Absentee ballots were rejected because of signature mismatches or other minor errors. One Abrams adviser described it as “death by a thousand paper cuts.” […]We don’t know yet – and might never know – how many people were disenfranchised or dissuaded from voting in the state. But it’s clear that Kemp did everything in his power to put in place restrictive voting policies that would help his candidacy and hurt his opponent, all while overseeing his own election.
Georgia’s system didn’t fail as a result of neglect or incompetence. Rather, Kemp, in his capacity as Georgia’s secretary of state and chief elections official, designed a process that worked exactly as intended.
There’s a debate underway in some circles about whether it’s fair for Democrats to use the word “stolen” in reference to this race, and the language certainly matters.
But let’s not miss the forest for the trees: Brian Kemp really did oversee a massive purge of the voter rolls. He really did needlessly freeze thousands of voter registration applications. He really did close key polling places. He really did falsely accuse Georgia Democrats of an illegal “hack” just days before Election Day.
