39% Of Republicans Will Blame Election Fraud If GOP Doesn’t Win Congress

Just to give you an idea of where we are – a new Axios/Ipsos poll shows 39% of Republicans will blame election fraud if the Republicans don’t win control of Congress in the midterm elections, while 29% of Democrats say the same. Continue reading “39% Of Republicans Will Blame Election Fraud If GOP Doesn’t Win Congress”

News Round-Up: July 19, 2021

Conservative pundit Ben Shapiro is mad NPR took a look at how he's using anger and political division to make millions.

Conservative pundit Ben Shapiro is mad NPR took a look at how he's using anger and political division to make millions.
Ben Shapiro (screen capture)
Some news items you might have missed: • NPR: Far-right pundit Ben Shapiro (above) is apparently mad that NPR did a deep dive into how he and his website, The Daily Wire, have found success in stoking outrage and political division via conservative clickbait. His site often generates more Facebook engagement on its articles than The New York Times, The Washington Post, and NBC News combined. But, but, but “cancel culture…”The Advocate: Authorities have charged three adults for their part in shaving a 12-year-old boy’s head to read “gay” then posting a video of the verbal and physical assault on social media.

The Hill: A new OH Predictive Insights poll shows 62% of Arizona Republicans believe the ongoing partisan election audit will eventually find Donald Trump won the state’s 11 Electoral College votes instead of President Biden. No evidence has emerged to suggest widespread voter fraud. Biden won the state by more than 10,000 votes in 2020. • Justice Dept: Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, the leader of the white supremacist group Proud Boys, pleaded guilty today to charges in two cases, including one involving the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner stolen from a downtown Washington church. Each offense carries a maximum sentence of 180 days’ imprisonment and/or a $1,000 fine.

New York Times: Wall Street saw its biggest daily decline in months today in a broad sell-off reflecting a range of concerns about economic growth and the potential for rising Covid-19 infections leading to the return of restrictions on travel and tourism. • Axios: With historically low inventory of preowned vehicles, the value of used cars is continuing to climb – even for vehicles with more than 100,000 miles. Car-shopping website Edmunds.com reports the average selling price for a used car with between 100,000 and 110,000 miles on it was $16,489 in June, up from $12,626 a year ago. • Instagram: Model Layna Bloom becomes the first transgender model to cover the annual Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. https://www.instagram.com/p/CRgnPViH21z/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

FL Republican Arrested For Paying Straw Candidate $50K In Campaign Fraud

Frank Artiles

Frank Artiles
Former state senator Frank Artiles arrested for campaign finance fraud
Wow, it looks like we found one of those “manipulated” elections! And no surprise! It’s a Republican doing the manipulating. Former Florida state Senator Frank Artiles (R) reportedly paid a man $50,000 to run in November’s District 37 state senate election as a third party candidate. The man, Alex Rodriguez, had the same last name as the incumbent Democrat, Jose Javier Rodriguez. In the end, without any campaigning or actual political aspirations, Alex Rodriguez received over 6,000 votes. The Republican challenger, Ileana Garcia, won the contest over the Democrat by only 32 votes. Artiles, along with Alex Rodriguez, was booked and arrested on third-degree charges of making or receiving campaign contributions over or in excess of limits, conspiracy to make or receive two or more campaign contributions over or in excess of limits, and false swearing in connection with voting or elections.

Election Officials In Every State: No Evidence Of Voter Fraud Found

Donald Trump (screen capture)

Donald Trump during ABC News Town Hall (screen capture)
The New York Times reached out to the top election officials in every state of the nation inquiring about any confirmed illegal voting or fraud in the 2020 presidential election as alleged by Donald Trump and the Republicans. The answer – from Republican and Democratic Secretaries of State – was a unanimous ‘no.’

Top election officials across the country said in interviews and statements that the process had been a remarkable success despite record turnout and the complications of a dangerous pandemic.

“There’s a great human capacity for inventing things that aren’t true about elections,” said Frank LaRose, a Republican who serves as Ohio’s secretary of state. “The conspiracy theories and rumors and all those things run rampant. For some reason, elections breed that type of mythology.” 

Steve Simon, a Democrat who is Minnesota’s secretary of state, said: “I don’t know of a single case where someone argued that a vote counted when it shouldn’t have or didn’t count when it should. There was no fraud.”

“Kansas did not experience any widespread, systematic issues with voter fraud, intimidation, irregularities or voting problems,” a spokeswoman for Scott Schwab, the Republican secretary of state in Kansas, said in an email Tuesday. “We are very pleased with how the election has gone up to this point.”

Trump: ‘It’s Terrible When A State Can Tabulate Votes For A Long Time’

Speaking to reporters during a campaign stop in North Carolina, Donald Trump railed against the idea that ballots – specifically mail-in ballots preferred by Democrats in this presidential cycle due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic – would be counted past election night. Basically, Trump is arguing that millions of voters be disenfranchised by having their ballot thrown out if it’s not counted by midnight on Election Day. “I think it’s a terrible thing when a state can tabulate ballots for a long time after an election is over. Cause it can only lead to one thing and that thing is very bad. I think it’s a very dangerous terrible thing. And I think it’s terrible when we can’t know the results of an election the night of an election in a modern-day age of computers. Trump also warned that he plans on going into states “the night of, as soon as that election is over, we’re going in with our lawyers.” He added, “If people wanted to get their ballots in, they should have gotten their ballots in long before that.” As everyone knows at this point, every state sets its own rules for when a ballot can be accepted and counted. Some states have laws allowing a ballot to be counted as long as they are postmarked the day of the election and received within a certain number of days. In other states, the ballot has to be received by Election Day. Plus, some states (Arizona, Florida, Nevada) begin processing mail-in ballots before Election Day but others (North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan) won’t begin to tabulate those ballots until November 3. Here’s a breakdown of when key states will begin to start counting ballots as well as their cutoff dates for receiving those mail-in votes.