Thislittle sissy has never shot a gun or thrown a punch. If Hitler was alive he would take over France again.
French President Emmanuel Macron denounced nationalism during an Armistice Day centennial observance in Paris on Sunday.
“Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism: Nationalism is treason,” Macron said, according to a Euronews translator.
Macron spoke in front of world leaders including President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
“If we think our interests may only come first and we don’t care for others, it is a treason of our values, a betrayal of all moral values,” he said. “We must remember this.”
Macron said that the moral values of France helped them fight for the future of their country.
He praised the world leaders that formed the first League of Nations, after World War I.
“They imagined the first international corporation, the dismantling of empires, and redefined borders, and dreamed at the time of a union, a political union of Europe,” Macron said.
He lamented that the spirit of revenge and humiliation after World War I sparked renewed nationalism that led to World War II.
Macron defended organizations like the European Union and the United Nations, hailing their ideals despite their “setbacks” over the years. He called for a new era of science-built progress.
“Together we can rise to the challenges of poverty, global warming, disease, inequality, and ignorance,” he said. “And we can win this together, because victory is possible together, together we can break away from the countertruths and injustices, we can counter the extremes which would drive us to war.”
In an interview with CNN, Macron continued his condemnation of nationalism but was hesitant to claim the “globalist” label.
“I would say I’m a patriot,” he said, but added: “I’m not a believer in a sort of globalism without any differentiation. I think it doesn’t — it’s very inconsistent, and it’s extremely — it makes our people very nervous. But I’m not a nationalist, which is very different for me from being a patriot.”
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has warned of the dangers of rising nationalism as he addressed Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and other world leaders at a ceremony in Paris to mark the 100th anniversary of the first world war armistice.
As more than 60 heads of state and dignitaries gathered in the rain near Paris’s tomb of the unknown soldier to mark a century since guns fell silent on the western front, Macron delivered a pointedly political speech, warning that “old demons” were resurfacing and threatened the fragile peace.
Later Macron commented that it was great to have world leaders at the Arc de Triomphe for the first world war memorial but asked how the photos would be seen in the future: “A symbol of lasting peace? Or the last moment of unity before the world falls into disorder? That depends on us.”
The centrist pro-European Macron used his commemoration speech to say that nations must find new ways to build peace together in the face of dangerous, rising populism and “selfish” nationalism.
Armistice Day: moving events mark 100 years since end of first world war – as it happened
Describing himself as a patriot, Macron said: “Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism. In saying ‘our interests first, whatever happens to the others,’ you erase the most precious thing a nation can have, that which makes it live, that which causes it to be great and that which is most important: its moral values.
“Old demons are resurfacing. History sometimes threatens to take its tragic course again and compromise our hope of peace. Let us vow to prioritise peace over everything.”
He said the traces of the first world war had never been erased from Europenor the Middle East and called on countries to stand together in “goodwill” against climate change, poverty and inequality. “Let us build our hopes rather than playing our fears against each other.”
Trump, who said recently he was proud to be a nationalist, looked on alongside Putin, the Russian president, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and scores of other leaders, but not the British prime minister, Theresa May, who was at the ceremony at the Cenotaph in London.

Armistice Day is marked around the world – in pictures
After the commemorations at the Arc de Triomphe, key world leaders had lunch at the Élysée Palace – a moment of frantic diplomacy for Macron. Trump was seated between Macron and the Moroccan king, Mohammed VI, and Merkel was seated next to Putin. The Spanish king Felipe was also at the table, and French observers marvelled that May was absent from the gathering. She was represented instead by David Lidington, who was not at the top table.
The leaders had met at the Arc de Triomphe for the armistice ceremony just after 11am. Most heads of state walked slowly together for the last few metres, standing shoulder to shoulder under black umbrellas. This slow walk under pouring rain was seen as a gesture for peace. Both Trump and Putin were absent as both arrived separately at the Arc de Triomphe in their own security conveys.
As Trump’s motorcade arrived, a topless activist from the Femen group ran out with “Fake” and “Peace” written on her chest, shouting “fake peace maker!” She was removed by police.
Putin was the last to arrive. He shook hands with several leaders but his warmest greeting was for Trump, giving him a smile and thumbs up and patting the US president’s arm.
Trump had been expected to meet Putin for talks during the visit, but will instead sit down with him formally later this month, most likely at a world leaders’ summit in Buenos Aires.
Trump had been criticised at home for cancelling a visit to an American cemetery outside Paris on Saturday because of bad weather. Rain grounded the helicopter Trump had planned to take, so he cancelled the trip, officials said. He instead visited a different American cemetery on Sunday afternoon.
Macron, Merkel and the UN secretary general Antonio Guterres opened a new peace forum in Paris, designed to boost multilateralism and the cooperation between nations at a moment of tension. Merkel warned that “lack of communication and unwillingness to compromise” could have terrible consequences for world peace.
Trump, who while pushing an “America First” agenda has called into question multilateralist organisations, was not going to attend the conference. Nor was Putin expected.
Some anti-Trump protestors gathered at a square in central Paris, where the Trump baby balloon seen in London was on display.
Don’t worry we will win damnit and the GOP will do nothing.
Florida’s Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, head of Broward County’s election board, has repeatedly been accused of misconduct.
The Florida governor and Senate races could lie in her hands.
A lawyer tied to the Democratic National Committee and Fusion GPS, the group behind the Steele dossier, has now gotten involved in a recount effort.
Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said Democrats are trying to “change the results” of the election, and a liberal said Snipes belongs in prison.
Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is warning that the fate of his state’s governorship could hang in the hands of Florida’s Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, whom he’s called incompetent for violating state and federal laws. A liberal candidate similarly painted her as incompetent and corrupt.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum initially conceded the Florida race to Republican Ron DeSantis, but backtracked after vote totals changed Thursday, narrowing the gap to less than half a percent in both the gubernatorial and senatorial races. Broward County is often the slowest of the state’s 67 counties to count votes, and its election department has repeatedly been faulted for wrongdoing.
Now, Perkins Coie lawyer Marc Elias has been enlisted in a recount effort. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson is retaining Elias, who said it’s “not plausible” that, as Broward statistics suggest, 14,000 people voted in sometimes-obscure state-level races but left the Senate one blank.
Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who, by initial appearances, beat Nelson in a race for Senate, said Elias will use aggressive techniques to “steal” the election.
Elias worked for both the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC during the 2016 election, even before the 2016 presidential candidate became the Democratic nominee, when the two were supposed to be independent. Perkins Coie also hired Fusion GPS during that election to investigate then-candidate Donald Trump, which ultimately resulted in an unverified dossier being sent to the FBI.
“Democrat lawyers are descending on Florida,” Rubio tweeted Thursday. “They have been very clear they aren’t here to make sure every vote is counted. They are here to change the results of election; & Broward is where they plan to do it.”
“Bay County was hit by a Cat 4 Hurricane just 4 weeks ago, yet managed to count votes & submit timely results,” the Florida Republican continued. “Yet over 41 hours after polls closed Broward elections office is still counting votes?”
Rubio also pointed out that Snipes “doesn’t know how many ballots are left to be counted” and that she isn’t regularly reporting results, which are “chipping away at GOP leads.”
Marco Rubio
✔@marcorubio
·
Long but IMPORTANT THREAT ON ELECTIONS IN #FLORIDA.#BayCounty was hit by a Cat 4 Hurricane just 4 weeks ago,yet managed to count votes & submit timely results.
Yet over 41 hours after polls closed #Broward elections office is still counting votes? #Sayfie
1/6
Marco Rubio
✔@marcorubio
#Broward supervisor:
– says she doesn’t know how many ballots are left to be counted; &
– Isn’t reporting hourly or regularly,but rather releasing thousands of additional votes,often in the overnight hours,that are chipping away at GOP leads
A liberal college professor who ran for Congress challenging Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz from the left, Tim Canova, made similar statements. Wasserman Schultz resigned as head of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) after leaked emails showed party officials seeking to rig the 2016 presidential primary against Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, but she continues to represent the Broward area in the House. (RELATED: Debbie Wasserman Schultz To Step Down As DNC Chair)
Tim Canova
✔@Tim_Canova
It’s now close to 43 hours since the polls closed and Brenda Snipes STILL doesn’t know how many votes are left to count! The results in my race are IMPOSSIBLE to believe. WATCH her explain in video below!
Tim Canova
✔@Tim_Canova
Say Brenda, have you tried like, maybe, like, CALLING all the workers? “We have not been able to determine (the ballot problems) yet because we haven’t talked to all the workers.” https://miami.cbslocal.com/video/category/news-politics/3973972-broward-still-counting-ballots/?fbclid=IwAR1_XS6_jIjQcw1y5mOR0fbVE6fduleiwDM1b9cqn9UsHXocWJG61Iz5BaY …
A judge found in August that Snipes improperly handled mail-in ballots, and ordered her not to open mail-in ballots in secret after the Republican Party complained. Snipes’s defense rested on a claim that she didn’t know what the word “canvassing” meant, even though she is on the county’s Canvassing Board.
Canova told The Daily Caller News Foundation that in that case, “they claimed to not know the difference between a federal and state investigation. They claim to be incompetent, but my impression is it’s partly a ruse.”
Polling and early-voting results showed him performing well in 2016, then the reported results rapidly shifted to favor Wasserman Schultz, leading him to suspect manipulation.
Supervisor of elections for Broward County Dr. Brenda C. Snipes holds a group of overvote ballots at the Broward county election equipment center in Ft Lauderdale, Florida, November 2, 2004. Overvotes are absentee ballots that have a vote for more than one candidate in a category. REUTERS/Gary I Rothstein
“So we put in a public records request to inspect some of the ballots, and if inspecting the paper ballot matched up, then it’s done, it will satisfy everyone,” Canova told TheDCNF. ” But the supervisor of elections stonewalled me for months.”
“I was told they didn’t have scanned images, even though on election night they put the ballots through a scanner. So we filed a discovery request to see the paper ballots,” he continued. “Three days later [Snipes] signed an order to destroy the ballots and certified that they were not the subject to ongoing litigation.”
“Her excuse was she just signed anything put in front of her and didn’t read it,” Canova said. “Then she said the ballots were put in the wrong place and that’s why they were destroyed. She concealed the destruction for two weeks.”
Snipes’s position is an elected one, and she is a Democrat.
Canova said even though Snipes admitted to destroying the ballots in a videotaped deposition, the government continued to fight the case.
“They’re using taxpayer money while bleeding us dry.”
Canova questioned why Scott and state Attorney General Pam Bondi, who’s also a Republican, didn’t pursue Snipes for criminal prosecution. He said she could face felony charges that carry five years in prison.
“We’re dealing with organized crime. I just don’t trust anything that comes out of this office,” he said. He said Republicans had joined with him to try to defeat Wasserman Schultz, saying “I might not agree with Tim about Medicare for All, but this about integrity, this is about getting out corruption.”
She sure wasn’t happy in her sworn deposition where she ADMITS to illegally destroying all YOUR paper ballots in my 2016 race against Wasserman Schultz. Watch/Listen to Snipes’ LAME EXCUSE for committing felonies yet to be investigated by law enforcement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGwG3WrqBRs&t=21s …
Canova posted video of people putting bags of ballots into private vehicles, including a sports car.
WATCH:
Tim Canova
✔@Tim_Canova
Caught On Video: Concerned citizen sees ballots being transported in private vehicles & transferred to rented truck on Election night. This violates all chain of custody requirements for paper ballots. Were the ballots destroyed & replaced by set of fake ballots? Investigate now!
In Broward County, Miramar Elementary School teacher Lakeisha Sorey came across a box labeled “Provisional ballots” left behind at the school from Election Day & she’s concerned it might have votes. She didn’t look in the box because she didn’t want to tamper with it
I’m looking forward to the day when Brenda Snipes, Broward Elections Supervisor, goes to prison for destroying every ballot cast in 2016 primary. I’m looking forward to the day when we can inspect the software for the electronic voting machines that supposedly counts every vote.
Andrew Gillum
✔@AndrewGillum
I’m looking forward to seeing every vote counted. https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/fl-ne-election-broward-turnout-difference-20181107-story.html …
She Should Be Forced To Retire. The Woman Can’t Tell You What Day Of The Week It Is Damit.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was seriously injured in a Wednesday evening fall in her chambers at the U.S. Supreme Court.
The health of the 85-year-old justice and progressive favorite is much-watched, lest a sudden change of events give President Donald Trump a third appointment to the high court.
“Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg fell in her office at the Court last evening,” the Supreme Court public information office said Thursday morning. “She went home, but after experiencing discomfort overnight, went to George Washington University Hospital early this morning. Tests showed that she fractured three ribs on her left side and she was admitted for observation and treatment. Updates will be provided as they become available.”
The injury precluded Ginsburg from attending Thursday morning’s ceremonial investiture of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was confirmed on Oct 6. Trump, the First Lady, various administration officials, federal judges, and other well-placed members of Washington’s legal establishment are expected to attend.
Tuesday’s fall was not Ginsburg’s first. In 2012 she fell and broke two ribs, an injury which went undisclosed for some time. The justice has also been treated twice for cancer. In 1999 she famously endured a battery of radiation and chemotherapy for colon cancer without missing any official business. A decade later in 2009, she underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer.
Ginsburg is the high court’s oldest member. Her health is a continued source of anxiety for progressives. Ginsburg tends to dodge inquiries as to her well-being, insisting she will serve for as long as she is able.
President Donald Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions and replaced him with Sessions’ chief of staff, Trump announced by tweet Wednesday.
“We are pleased to announce that Matthew G. Whitaker, Chief of Staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the Department of Justice, will become our new Acting Attorney General of the United States,” Trump tweeted. “He will serve our Country well. We thank Attorney General Jeff Sessions for his service, and wish him well! A permanent replacement will be nominated at a later date.”
We are pleased to announce that Matthew G. Whitaker, Chief of Staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the Department of Justice, will become our new Acting Attorney General of the United States. He will serve our Country well….
We are pleased to announce that Matthew G. Whitaker, Chief of Staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the Department of Justice, will become our new Acting Attorney General of the United States. He will serve our Country well….
“At your request I am submitting my resignation,” Sessions began.
Sessions continued, “We prosecuted the largest number of violent offenders and firearm defenders in our country’s history. We took on transnational gangs that are bringing violence and death across our borders and protected national security.”
“I have been honored to serve as Attorney General and have worked to implement the law enforcement agenda based on the rule of law that formed a central part of your campaign for the Presidency,” he closed.
Trump has long been agitating to fire Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation and blames him for the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller. Trump hinted in the run up to the 2018 midterm elections that he would fire Sessions.
REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Fox News reports that the Department of Justice does not believe it needs to swear in Whitaker as acting attorney general, since he has already been sworn in for a different position.
Multiple reports indicate Whitaker is now in charge of all DOJ activities, including Mueller’s investigation. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had been overseeing the probe since Sessions’ recusal.
Whitaker wrote an op-ed for USA Today in July 2016 saying he would indict former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her handling of classified information.
READ THE FULL LETTER FROM SESSIONS:
Dear Mr. President,
At your request I am submitting my resignation.
Since the day I was honored to be sworn in as Attorney General of the United States, I came to work at the Department of Justice every day determined to do my duty and serve my country. I have done so to the best of my ability, working to support the fundamental legal processes that are the foundation of justice.
The team we assembled embraced your directive to be a law and order Department of Justice. We prosecuted the largest number of violent offenders and firearm defendants in our country’s history. We took on transnational gangs that are bringing violence and death across our borders and protected national security. We did our part to restore immigration enforcement. We targeted the opioid epidemic by prosecuting doctors, pharmacists, and anyone else who contributes to this crisis with new law enforcement tools and determination. And we have seen results. After two years of rising violent crime and homicides prior to this administration, those trends have reversed—thanks to the hard work of our prosecutors and law enforcement around the country.
I am particularly grateful to the fabulous men and women in law enforcement all over this country with whom I have served. I have had no greater honor than to serve alongside them. As I have said many times, they have my thanks and I will always have their backs.
Most importantly, in my time as Attorney General we have restored and upheld the rule of law—a glorious tradition that each of us has a responsibility to safeguard. We have operated with integrity and have lawfully and aggressively advanced the policy agenda of this administration.
I have been honored to serve as Attorney General and have worked to implement the law enforcement agenda based on the rule of law that formed a central part of your campaign for the Presidency.
Democrats seized the House majority from President Donald Trump’s Republican Party on Tuesday in a suburban revolt that threatened what’s left of the president’s governing agenda. But the GOP gained ground in the Senate and preserved key governorships, beating back a “blue wave” that never fully materialized.
The mixed verdict in the first nationwide election of Trump’s presidency underscored the limits of his hardline immigration rhetoric in America’s evolving political landscape, where college-educated voters in the nation’s suburbs rejected his warnings of a migrant “invasion.” But blue-collar voters and rural America embraced his aggressive talk and stances.
The new Democratic House majority will end the Republican Party’s dominance in Washington for the final two years of Trump’s first term with major questions looming about health care, immigration and government spending.
“Tomorrow will be a new day in America,” declared House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who would be in line to become the next House speaker.
But the Democrats’ edge is narrow. With 218 seats needed for a majority, Democrats have won 219 and the Republicans 193, with winners undetermined in 23 races.
Trump was expected to address the results at a post-election news conference scheduled for midday Wednesday.
The president’s party will maintain control of the executive branch of the government, in addition to the Senate, but Democrats suddenly have a foothold that gives them subpoena power to probe deep into Trump’s personal and professional missteps — and his long-withheld tax returns.
Early Wednesday, Trump warned Democrats against using their new majority to investigate his administration.
“If the Democrats think they are going to waste Taxpayer Money investigating us at the House level,” Trump tweeted, “then we will likewise be forced to consider investigating them for all of the leaks of Classified Information, and much else, at the Senate level. Two can play that game!” It wasn’t clear what “leaks” he was referring to.
It could have been a much bigger night for Democrats, who suffered stinging losses in Ohio and in Florida, where Trump-backed Republican Ron DeSantis ended Democrat Andrew Gillum’s bid to become the state’s first African-American governor.
The 2018 elections also exposed an extraordinary political realignment in an electorate defined by race, gender, and education that could shape U.S. politics for years to come.
The GOP’s successes were fueled by a coalition that’s decidedly older, whiter, more male and less likely to have college degrees. Democrats relied more upon women, people of color, young people and college graduates.
Record diversity on the ballot may have helped drive turnout.
Voters were on track to send at least 99 women to the House, shattering the record of 84 now. The House was also getting its first two Muslim women, Massachusetts elected its first black congresswoman, and Tennessee got its first female senator.
Three candidates had hoped to become their states’ first African-American governors, although just one — Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams — was still in the running.
Overall, women voted considerably more in favor of congressional Democratic candidates — with fewer than 4 in 10 voting for Republicans, according to VoteCast, a nationwide survey of more than 115,000 voters and about 20,000 nonvoters — conducted for The Associated Press by NORC at the University of Chicago.
In suburban areas where key House races were decided, female voters skewed significantly toward Democrats by a nearly 10-point margin.
Democrats celebrated a handful of victories in their “blue wall” Midwestern states, electing or re-electing governors in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and in Wisconsin, where Scott Walker was defeated by state education chief Tony Evers.
The road to a House majority ran through two dozen suburban districts Hillary Clinton won in 2016. Democrats flipped seats in suburban districts outside of Washington, Philadelphia, Miami, Chicago and Denver. Democrats also reclaimed a handful of blue-collar districts carried by both former President Barack Obama and Trump.
The results were more mixed deeper into Trump country.
In Kansas, Democrat Sharice Davids beat a GOP incumbent to become the first gay Native American woman elected to the House. But in Kentucky, one of the top Democratic recruits, retired Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath, lost her bid to oust to three-term Rep. Andy Barr.
Trump sought to take credit for retaining the GOP’s Senate majority, even as the party lost control of the House. In a tweet Wednesday, he referred to the election results as a “Big Victory.”
History was working against the president in both the House and the Senate: The president’s party has traditionally suffered deep losses in his first midterm election, and 2002 was the only midterm election in the past three decades when the party holding the White House gained Senate seats.
Democrats’ dreams of the Senate majority, always unlikely, were shattered after losses in top Senate battlegrounds: Indiana, Missouri, Tennessee, North Dakota and Texas.
Some hurt worse than others.
In Texas, Sen Ted Cruz staved off a tough challenge from Democrat Beto O’Rourke, whose record-smashing fundraising and celebrity have set off buzz he could be a credible 2020 White House contender.
Trump encouraged voters to view the 2018 midterms as a referendum on his leadership, pointing proudly to the surging economy at his recent rallies.
Nearly 40 percent of voters cast their ballots to express opposition to the president, according to VoteCast, while one-in-four said they voted to express support for Trump.
Overall, 6 in 10 voters said the country was headed in the wrong direction, but roughly that same number described the national economy as excellent or good. Twenty-five percent described health care and immigration as the most important issues in the election.
Nearly two-thirds said Trump was a reason for their vote.
The president bet big on a xenophobic closing message, warning of an immigrant “invasion” that promised to spread violent crime and drugs across the nation. Several television networks, including the president’s favorite Fox News Channel, yanked a Trump campaign advertisement off the air on the eve of the election, determining that its portrayal of a murderous immigrant went too far.
One of Trump’s most vocal defenders on immigration, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, lost his bid for governor.
Kobach had built a national profile as an advocate of tough immigration policies and strict voter photo ID laws. He served as vice chairman of Trump’s now-defunct commission on voter fraud.
The president found partial success despite his current job approval, set at 40 percent by Gallup, the lowest at this point of any first-term president in the modern era. Both Barack Obama’s and Bill Clinton’s numbers were 5 points higher, and both suffered major midterm losses of 63 and 54 House seats respectively.
Meanwhile, the close of the 2018 midterm season marked the unofficial opening of the next presidential contest.
Several ambitious Democrats easily won re-election, including presidential prospects Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. A handful of others played outsized roles in their parties’ midterm campaigns, though not as candidates, and were reluctant to telegraph their 2020 intentions before the 2018 fight was decided. They included New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, California Sen. Kamala Harris, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Vice President Joe Biden.
Said Warren: “This resistance began with women and it is being led by women tonight.”
___
Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and Zeke Miller in Washington, Kantele Franko in Westerville, Ohio and Michael Kunzelman in Silver Spring, Maryland, contributed to this report.
__
This story has been corrected to show former New York City mayor reference to Michael Bloomberg, not Tom Steyer.
Midterm Elections: As people go to vote on Tuesday, they will be counting on the system working properly. Which means only those eligible to vote will do so. Unfortunately, as recent cases show, that’s not always the case.
Texas State Attorney General Ken Paxton decided to crack down on voter fraud before the midterm elections. So far, he’s prosecuted 33 people for 97 counts of voter fraud this year alone. Among the discoveries was a voter fraud ring that had received financial support from the former head of the Texas Democratic Party.
Pennsylvania let thousands of noncitizens register to vote, many of whom have since voted, according to reporter John Fund, who has been following this issue for years.
The Heritage Foundation has a database that now includes 1,165 cases of election fraud across 47 states. More than 1,000 of them resulted in criminal convictions.
Yet there are those — mostly Democrats and mainstream journalists — who continue to insist that voter fraud is a myth. The New York Times’ Glenn Thrush once declared, for example, that “there is essentially no voter fraud in this country.”
When shown concrete examples, the response is usually “well, it’s not widespread.”
But that reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of elections. You don’t need “widespread” voter fraud to change election outcomes, just small-scale efforts targeted on tight or consequential elections.
Solutions Are Simple
The fact is that committing voter fraud isn’t all that difficult, but minimizing it is easy. Cleaning up registration rolls, enacting voter ID requirements, using paper ballots, and implementing better controls on early and absentee voting would make non-citizen voting and other forms of fraud virtually impossible.
Critics of such efforts say that they will only serve to suppress the vote of minorities and the poor — that is, voters who tend to vote Democratic. They want to make it easier and easier to register and vote.
But there’s no evidence that voter ID laws suppress turnout. In fact, of 11 states that adopted strict voter ID laws, nine either saw increased turnout in 2016, or had turnout rates higher than the national average, the Heritage Foundation notes.
Nor does cleaning up registration rolls, aggressively pursuing voter fraud cases, using paper ballots, or other measures to ensure the integrity of the ballot suppress legitimate voters.
Those who say voter fraud is no big deal should realize something. Every single vote cast fraudulently cancels out one legitimate vote. They need to ask themselves how they’d feel if it was their vote being canceled.
At least 3.5 million more people are on U.S. election rolls than are eligible to vote.
S
ome 3.5 million more people are registered to vote in the U.S. than are alive among America’s adult citizens. Such staggering inaccuracy is an engraved invitation to voter fraud.
The Election Integrity Project of Judicial Watch — a Washington-based legal-watchdog group — analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011–2015 American Community Survey and last month’s statistics from the federal Election Assistance Commission. The latter included figures provided by 38 states. According to Judicial Watch, eleven states gave the EAC insufficient or questionable information. Pennsylvania’s legitimate numbers place it just below the over-registration threshold.
My tabulation of Judicial Watch’s state-by-state results yielded 462 counties where the registration rate exceeded 100 percent. There were 3,551,760 more people registered to vote than adult U.S. citizens who inhabit these counties.
“That’s enough over-registered voters to populate a ghost-state about the size of Connecticut,” Judicial Watch attorney Robert Popper told me.
These 462 counties (18.5 percent of the 2,500 studied) exhibit this ghost-voter problem. These range from 101 percent registration in Delaware’s New Castle County to New Mexico’s Harding County, where there are 62 percent more registered voters than living, breathing adult citizens — or a 162 percent registration rate.
Washington’s Clark County is worrisome, given its 154 percent registration rate. This includes 166,811 ghost voters. Georgia’s Fulton County seems less nettlesome at 108 percent registration, except for the number of Greater Atlantans, 53,172, who compose that figure.
But California’s San Diego County earns the enchilada grande. Its 138 percent registration translates into 810,966 ghost voters. Los Angeles County’s 112 percent rate equals 707,475 over-registrations. Beyond the official data that it received, Judicial Watch reports that LA County employees “informed us that the total number of registered voters now stands at a number that is a whopping 144 percent of the total number of resident citizens of voting age.”
All told, California is a veritable haunted house, teeming with 1,736,556 ghost voters. Judicial Watch last week wrote Democratic secretary of state Alex Padilla and authorities in eleven Golden State counties and documented how their election records are in shambles.
“California’s voting rolls are an absolute mess that undermines the very idea of clean elections,” said Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton in a statement. “It is urgent that California take reasonable steps to clean up its rolls. We will sue if state officials fail to act.”
Ronald Reagan’s California has devolved into a reliably far-Left stronghold. While pristine voter rolls should be a given in a constitutional republic with democratic elections, even that improvement might be too little to make America’s most populous state competitive in presidential elections.
The same cannot be said for battleground states, in which Electoral College votes can be decided by incredibly narrow margins. Consider the multitude of ghost voters in:
‐ Colorado: 159,373
‐ Florida: 100,782
‐ Iowa: 31,077
‐ Michigan: 225,235
‐ New Hampshire: 8,211
‐ North Carolina: 189,721
‐ Virginia: 89,979
(For a deeper dive into these data, please download my spreadsheet here.)
President Donald J. Trump’s supporters might be intrigued to learn that Hillary Clinton’s margins of victory in Colorado (136,386) and New Hampshire (2,736) were lower than the numbers of ghost voters in those states. Clinton’s fans should know that Trump won Michigan (10,704) and North Carolina (173,315) by fewer ballots than ghost voters in those states.
It’s past time to exorcise ghost voters from the polls.
Perhaps these facts will encourage Democrats to join the GOP-dominated effort to remove ineligible felons, ex-residents, non-citizens, and dead people from the voter rolls — for all contests, not just presidential races.
“When you have an extremely large number of stale names on the voter rolls in a county, it makes voter fraud much easier to commit,” Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R., Kan.), co-chairman of President Trump’s Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, told me. “It’s easier to identify a large number of names of people who have moved away or are deceased. At that point, if there is no photo-ID requirement in the state, those identities can be used to vote fraudulently.”
In fact, CBS’s Windy City affiliate last October compared local vote records with the Social Security Administration’s master death file. “In all,” the channel concluded, “the analysis showed 119 dead people have voted a total of 229 times in Chicago in the last decade.” KCBS–Los Angeles reported in May 2016 that 265 dead voters had cast ballots in southern California “year after year.”
Under federal law, the 1993 National Voter Registration Act and the 2002 Help America Vote Act require states to maintain accurate voter lists. Nonetheless, some state politicians ignore this law. Others go further: Governor Terry McAuliffe (D., Va.) vetoed a measure last February that would have mandated investigations of elections in which ballots cast outnumbered eligible voters.
Even more suspiciously, when GOP governor Rick Scott tried to obey these laws and update Florida’s records, including deleting 51,308 deceased voters, Obama’s Justice Department filed a federal lawsuit to stop him. Federal prosecutors claimed that Governor Scott’s statewide efforts violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act, although it applies to only five of Florida’s 67 counties. Then–attorney general Eric Holder and his team behaved as if Martin Luther King Jr. and the Freedom Riders fought so valiantly in order to keep cadavers politically active.
Whether Americans consider vote fraud a Republican hoax, a Democratic tactic, or something in between, everyone should agree that it’s past time to exorcise ghost voters from the polls.
