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1. The truth about voter fraud
One of the defining elements of Donald Trump’s political life has been the idea that thousands of undocumented immigrants are casting ballots — presumably for Democrats.
Just weeks after winning, yes WINNING, the 2016 election, Trump tweeted this:
Days after taking office, Trump repeated the claim — this time in a gathering of congressional lawmakers. As the New York Times wrote at the, uh, time:
President Trump used his first official meeting with congressional leaders on Monday to falsely claim that millions of unauthorized immigrants had robbed him of a popular vote majority, a return to his obsession with the election’s results even as he seeks support for his legislative agenda.
The claim, which he has made before on Twitter, has been judged untrue by numerous fact-checkers. The new president’s willingness to bring it up at a White House reception in the State Dining Room is an indication that he continues to dwell on the implications of his popular vote loss even after assuming power.
In May 2017, Trump established — by executive order — the “Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.” Kris Kobach, at the time the Kansas Secretary of State and the vice chair of the commission, was blunt about its goals: “As the chief election officer of a state, ensuring the integrity of elections is my number one responsibility. The work of this commission will assist all state elections officials in the country in understanding, and addressing, the problem of voter fraud.”
Less than a year later, the commission disbanded.
“Despite substantial evidence of voter fraud, many states have refused to provide the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity with basic information relevant to its inquiry,” said Trump. “Rather than engage in endless legal battles at taxpayer expense, today I signed an executive order to dissolve the commission, and have asked the Department of Homeland Security to review these issues and determine next courses of action.”
Uh huh.
ALL of which brings me to Wednesday on Capitol Hill where House Speaker Mike Johnson held a press conference to draw attention to the rampant “problem” of millions of undocumented immigrants voting. When asked to provide, you know, evidence of this claim, Johnson admitted he had none.
“We all know intuitively that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections, but it’s not been something that is easily provable,” Johnson said. “We don’t have that number.”
Here’s the thing: We have lots and LOTS of evidence that suggests that there simply is no major problem with undocumented immigrants (or anyone else) casting votes illegally in presidential (or any other kind of election).
Take the 2020 election as an example. The Associated Press (God bless them!) looked into every single claim of voter fraud in six swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
What did they find? A total of 475 votes — yes, 475 TOTAL — that they categorized as questionable out of more than 25 million votes cast across those half-dozen states.
And, what’s more, there was ZERO evidence that ANY of these potentially fraudulent votes were part of any sort of grand conspiracy. (I mean how grand can it be when we are talking about under 500 votes!).
As the AP noted of the instances of potential fraud they found:
A Wisconsin man who mistakenly thought he could vote while on parole.
A woman in Arizona suspected of sending in a ballot for her dead mother.
A Pennsylvania man who went twice to the polls, voting once on his own behalf and once for his son.
The cases were isolated. There was no widespread, coordinated deceit.
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