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Florida has seen the play earlier than.
President Trump, with out proof, complains repeatedly about poll fraud in communities wealthy with Democratic voters, questioning the legitimacy of the election.
That could be a reference to not Tuesday night time’s debate however to 2018, when Mr. Trump claimed in the midst of a recount that the midterm election leads to Florida had been tainted.
“An sincere vote rely is not doable — ballots massively contaminated,” Mr. Trump falsely asserted on Twitter on Nov. 12, 2018, including that ballots had “confirmed up out of nowhere, and plenty of ballots are lacking or cast.”
“Don’t fear, Florida — I’m sending a lot better legal professionals to show the FRAUD!” he wrote on Nov. 8.
That very same day, Gov. Rick Scott, the Republican nominee for Senate who was awaiting a recount in his race, had accused two of the state’s largest counties, Broward and Palm Seaside, of “rampant fraud” and requested officers within the Florida Division of Regulation Enforcement to analyze.
Examine they did. And earlier this 12 months, on the finish of their practically 18-month inquiry, the investigators discovered no proof of widespread fraud.
No, there was nothing sinister about vote totals being up to date slowly in a single day. No, Republicans weren’t illegally barred from observing the recount. No, Democrats didn’t act unlawfully after they tried to assist voters repair issues on their mailed-in ballots.
The one proof of wrongdoing that investigators pointed to was that an elections supervisor in Bay County, in a closely Republican a part of the Florida Panhandle that had been ravaged by Hurricane Michael, counted 12 votes despatched in by way of electronic mail, a doable violation of state legislation. Prosecutors decided there was not sufficient proof to carry a case.
The findings, launched in Might, drew comparatively little consideration amid the coronavirus pandemic. However they dismantled the false fraud claims made in 2018 by Mr. Trump and Mr. Scott, who received the race and is now Florida’s junior senator.
It’s value revisiting that investigation in gentle of the baseless fraud claims that Mr. Trump made on Tuesday within the debate in opposition to Joe Biden. If one of many classes of Florida’s notorious presidential recount in 2000 was to keep away from complicated ballots with hanging chads, maybe a lesson of Florida’s 2018 recount is to be cautious of bombastic, unproven claims of shenanigans.
Fraud has develop into “a typical Republican speaking level,” former Senator Invoice Nelson, who misplaced to Mr. Scott two years in the past, informed me immediately. “It’s not shocking that Trump would say the identical factor now, anticipating that the mailed-in ballots are going to be closely Democratic.”
After the 2000 recount, state officers tried to make it simpler to vote, Mr. Nelson famous. “After which that pattern reversed,” he lamented.
Now he and others concern that crying fraud might scare voters away from the polls.
“I’m so pissed off by these claims that basically are clearly designed to destroy the credibility of our election system,” stated Ion V. Sancho, who labored because the elections supervisor in Leon County — dwelling to Tallahassee, the state capital — for practically 30 years. “There are many issues throughout the elections course of itself with out elevating false claims of vote rigging. We simply must cease taking part in partisan politics with our election system.”
Perhaps subsequent cycle.
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