YA TALK ABOUT A FRAUD!
Trump has no actual facts on tight races, but sees conspiracy
President Trump is crying fraud.
Without a whiff of evidence, the commander-inchief suggested Friday that there's something sinister about ongoing efforts to determine winners in several tight midterm races.
Senate races in Florida and Arizona as well as Georgia's governor's race remain too close to call and ballots are still being counted in nearly a dozen House races across the country.
The slow process of tallying all of the votes prompted Trump to turn to conspiracy theories to explain the delays.
“You mean they are just now finding votes in Florida and Georgia — but the Election was on Tuesday?" he tweeted. “Let's blame the Russians and demand an immediate apology from President Putin!"
Trump's sarcastic nod to the Kremlin's efforts to influence the 2016 election echoed claims made a day earlier by Florida's Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who alleged without citing evidence that officials in South Florida are trying to “steal” the election for Democrats.
Protesters gathered outside the office of Broward County supervisor of elections Brenda Snipes, on Friday singing "The Star Spangled Banner" and "God Bless America.”
Trump vowed to send lawyers to expose “fraud” in Broward.
“Law Enforcement is looking into another big corruption scandal having to do with Election Fraud in #Broward and Palm Beach. Florida voted for Rick Scott!” he added.
Scott is hoping to unseat Democratic incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson, who is preparing for a potential recount.
In the state's governor's race, Democrat Andrew Gillum's campaign said Thursday it's also readying for a possible recount. That race has tightened since Gillum initially conceded to Republican Ron DeSantis on Tuesday night. As of Thursday afternoon, DeSantis led Gillum by 0.47 percentage points.
Trump, upset that the tallies have tightened in both races, tweeted that the efforts to tally every provisional and absentee ballot are “an embarrassment to our Country and to Democracy!”
Nelson's attorney, suing to prevent election officials statewide from throwing out mail-in votes and provisional ballots and also asking a federal court to extend the deadline for counties to submit unofficial election results past Saturday, fired back at the President.
"He himself said that as ballots are being counted, it is tightening. Then he made some veiled threat or suggestion that he was somehow going to involve law enforcement," Elias said. “This is not a third world dictatorship. We do not let people seize ballots when they think they're losing."
In Georgia, gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is also hoping to force a runoff with her Republican opponent, Brian Kemp, who resigned his post as the state's secretary of state on Thurs-
day.
Kemp has already claimed victory, and his campaign released a statement saying Abrams was trying to "steal" the election in a courtroom. Returns show Kemp with 50.3% of almost 4 million votes, a roughly 63,000-vote lead.
Trump called on Abrams to “move on.”
“@BrianKempGA ran a great race in Georgia – he won. It is time to move on!,” he tweeted.
The President also made baseless allegations of fraud in Arizona as Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema took a tiny lead Thursday over Republican Rep. Martha McSally in the race to fill the seat vacated by retiring GOP Sen. Jeff Flake.
At least 400,000 votes were still uncounted as of Friday morning, including about 375,000 in Maricopa County, which leans Democratic, according to The Associated Press
Trump suggested that. “all of a sudden, out of the wilderness, they find a lot of votes.”
Arizona is historically slow at counting ballots, a majority of which are cast by mail.
Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes said counting may continue until Nov. 15.
“We know there's urgency out there, but we want to get it right, not quick,” he said.
Election experts pushed back on the President's unfounded claims of fraud.
“Many if not all states still have ballots to count. That's normal, and elections officials should be credited for their hard work,” tweeted David Becker, the executive director for the Center for Election Innovation and Research.
Sen. Chuck Shumer blasted the President for interfering with state elections.
“Mr. President: Every voter is entitled to vote whether they agree with you or not. Democracy is stronger than you are. Cut the crap,” he tweeted.
It's far from the first time that the President has made outlandish assertions of widespread voter fraud — claims mostly considered fantasy by election experts.
The President repeatedly claimed that millions voted illegally in the 2016 election after he lost the popular vote by 3 million ballots to Democrat Hillary Clinton. Last year, he created a commission tasked with rooting out voter fraud — which was soon disbanded after facing several lawsuits and failing to find any evidence of malfeasance.
Ahead of the midterms, Trump claimed that law enforcement had been “strongly notified” to watch for “ILLEGAL VOTING.”