TRUMP, “ELECTION FRAUD”, VOTER SUPPRESSION AND DEMOCRACY

The President is behaving more and more as if he is under siege. Following a disastrous mid term electoral reversal and being regarded as lacking in decency and even worse irrelevant in Paris he is lashing out with as vengeance in a manner not as yet ever seen - and that is saying something! In addition he is tweeting up a storm on the Mueller investigation which is obviously perilously close to him and his family. His legal jeopardy is exacerbated now that his legislative firewall is no longer.

 The main burden of his unhinged barrage is that the election system is rigged - only the contests where the Republicans are in danger of losing seats, that is. The President has inter alia tweeted ten times that Senator Nelson of Florida, who is behind in the vote count, wants to steal the election. He is twelve thousand votes behind out of eight million cast which situation is subject to a mandatory recount. Nelson’s insistence that the electoral procedure follow its course is being used as an excuse to denigrate him and accuse him of cheating. 

Central to Trump’s current bile is the outstanding inconclusive election results in Florida and Georgia. Arizona has been removed from the hit list as the Republican candidate much to the ire of the protestors has conceded the Democrat takeover in that State. So now that red Arizona has turned blue the anti has been upped for the Florida Senate seat and the Georgia Governorship big time. In the unlikely event that Florida goes the wrong way then in addition to losing close on forty House seats the Republicans will have gained almost nothing in the Senate in return. 

It would be too much to ask the POTUS to accept that counting votes is not akin to stealing elections. What is ominous for the country’s democracy is what is playing out is the playbook Roger Stone, the Russian hackers and echoed by Trump that if he lost they would all cry that the elections were rigged and stolen by the Democrats. 

As the GOP has already sustained seven Governorship reversals the Georgian race assumes even more importance. Trump strongly supported the Republican Gubernatorial candidate for Georgia, Brian Kemp and repeatedly abused the Democratic African American female candidate in terms that he reserves for that racial demographic. So Trump is heavily invested in the outcome of the Florida and Georgia elections. 

The irony is that the probability is that the GOP will win both of these outstanding contests and the obscene grandstanding is part unbridled frustration, part tactic to obscure the substantial midterm losses and part the ongoing exhausting firing up of his diminishing base.

TRUMP AND GOP THIRD WORLD TACTICS AND ITS IMPACT ON DEMOCRACY

The irresponsible unproven attacks on the electoral process, lead by the President, claiming that there is voter fraud and that Georgia’s Democratic Abrams and Florida’s Democratic Nelson are trying to steal elections is outrageous. It is instructive to report that judges in both Florida and Georgia have maintained that there is no evidence of fraud and every vote needs to be counted. Florida’s Circuit Judge Truter called for a ramping down of the rhetoric as it eroded public confidence in the elections. Lest anyone forgets it was the bombastic Donald himself that claimed the midterms were a referendum on him. If the Senate can only reflect, at most a two seat gain, then by his own definition he is a “loser”. Especially as the Dems are on track for a nearly forty House gain, have won seven Governorships and three hundred and fifty State Legislative constituencies. 

What is even more dangerous to Democracy than the President behaving like the head of a banana republic, is the obsequious slavish support that he is getting from the administrative arm and the elected representatives of one of the two major political parties - the Republican Party of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and more recently Ronald Reagan. In Florida the GOP Senatorial candidate, Governor Scott, the other Floridian Senator, Marc Rubio and Trump’s newest lap dog Lindsey Graham are all publicly joining in behavior more akin to Zimbabwe than America.

TRUMP’S CURRENT FRUSTRATIONS AS MUELLER LOOMS LARGE

What frustrates Trump is that he seized on the GOP massive electoral advantage in the Senate clash to concentrate his campaign efforts in that arena, The belief was that there just had to be big gains and he could claim credit. Speaker Ryan could then take the blame for the expected House of Representatives loss and he the great big poohbah could still wear the mantle of invincibility. 

Added to his disgruntlement is the fact that the Mueller investigation is closing in. His lawyers are reviewing, with him, their answers to questions that the Special Counsel wants answers too. It is widely believed that Mueller may well follow up with a subpoena. Then as elections have consequences he has to fear the Democratic controlled House which has all the power in the world to probe into all the dark corners of his life. Then he is facing at least three major lawsuits that involve Constitutional breeches including a near consensus that his appointment of a lackey Attorney General is not constitutional either. This is besides litigation which involves him and his close family in relation to his fraudulent defunct Foundation. 

The WhiteHouse is in a bigger shambles than even reported in BobWoodward’s book, “Fear” with Sessions already been fired and Kristen Nielsen, Homeland Secretary’s Head publicly on the chopping block. The recurrent rumor that John Kelly his Chief of Staff is on his way out and the fact that Melania Trump has joined in and demanded that her husband fire his Deputy National Security Advisor Mira Ricandel has added to the chaos. Finally, he by his sulking petulant behavior was made to look like a fool and even worse irrelevant in his recent European trip. 

In the light of Trump’s full court press on claiming Democratic malfeasance it is instructive to look at the background of Republican voter suppression operating in Georgia and Florida which incidentally is illustrative of their modus operandi.

GEORGIA

At the outset the Republican candidate for Governor in Georgia, Brian Kemp, in his capacity as Secretary of State oversaw the electoral process that he participated in. Anticipating the changing demographic tides in his State, Kemp, between 2012 and 2016 purged the voters roll of well over a million voters for flimsy reasons. He denied that this was a calculated move to eliminate minority and lower economic voters even though those demographics were in the bulk of the removals. He shut down over 200 polling stations making it more difficult for poorer and blacker voters to get to the polls. That transparent discriminatory move was coupled with providing fewer voting machines in the lower economic areas which resulted in long waits to exercise the franchise. These efforts and stricter ID laws forced many voters to have to execute provisional ballots which subsequently needed a court order to force him to count them. Georgia is one of the few states that does not keep a paper record of the vote so there is no recourse for any fraud that Kemp, the overseer of the election, might perpetrate. He then had the audacity to allege with no proof that the Democrats had attempted to hack the electoral system. 

A Federal Judge finally ruled that all the provisional ballots had to be reviewed and wanted answers as to why so many had to be issued. Stacy Adams, the Democratic candidate, needs 20,000 more votes to force a rerun of the election - a tall order in this circumstance but she claims there are a lot more than that that have not been counted and or unfairly been sidelined.

Whichever way this is viewed Georgia, which in all probability, by hook or by crook, will remain red this cycle, will not remain in the Republican column for perpetuity. 

FLORIDA

Like his compatriot in Georgia, Governor Rick Scott who is the GOP’s Senate candidate is ultimately in charge of the Florida’s election that he is participating in. He has been calling all the shots in this post election saga. The Secretary of State in Florida who is nominally overseeing this nail biter is also a Republican. Scott like Kemp has been actively been involved in purging the voter’s rolls, disproportionately removing Latinos and African Americans. Other initiatives that he has employed that impact on the ability of minorities to vote are making registration onerous and decreasing voting days. 

Scott, taking a page out of the President’s playbook has claimed fraud and general malfeasance by the Democrats. He like the POTUS believes that the law enforcement agency in his State is his personal army. He instructed them to investigate the Democrats for their fraud and objective to “steal” the election. The latter responded that there are no credible allegations to pursue and declined. He has multiple court cases in progress and won a few minor victories but lost all those that matter such as alleging fraud, to impound the voting machines and generally to hamper the recount. 

The big Florida voting controversy centers around Broward County which has over two million population. This county is overwhelmingly Democratic. The electoral officer who is under siege is Brenda Snipes a Bush appointee whom Scott and or his Secretary of State could have thrown out if she is as crooked as they allege. If half their allegations were true they were negligent in not replacing her. The Republicans led by the POTUS and Scott have done nothing to dampen down the rumors spreading in the right wing blogosphere such as there are ballot boxes being smuggled in. To quote Trump’s most oft spurted out summation, “It’s a disgrace”.

Florida like Georgia is also living on borrowed time as a Republican State. On the Florida ballot was a referendum on reinstating the vote to one and a half million felons who have served their sentences and who were not initially convicted for major crimes. Both Scott and the newly elected Florida Governor whose victory is also subject to a recount opposed the reinstatement. The referendum was instituted by a non political group and was supported by the Democrats. Those deprived of votes were disproportionately from lower socio economic and minority groups. This sizable group of citizenry is separate from those removed from the rolls for other reasons.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

Close election results always create tension, disappointment, recriminations and even accusations. In the normal course of events there are mechanisms to resolve and confirm or overturn the initial result. After the election in Florida in 2000, when George W. Bush won Florida by five hundred and seventy one votes, and as a result the Presidency, the Republicans created near riot conditions to prevent a recount, legislation was enacted defining when a recount would be mandatory. (The 2000 election was subsequently decided by the Supreme Court. The latter’s decision will live on in infamy when on a partisan decision by five votes to four they declared Bush President and stopped the vote counting.) 

So with mechanisms in place to resolve any doubts the repugnant and vulgar bohaai following the midterm elections was nothing but bullying and intimidation. All that should have happened is that the statutory process should have been put into effect. Georgia also has its own mandatory provisions in the event of the winner not attaining fifty percent of the vote and under what conditions a recount may be instituted. The leader of the country by his behavior has degraded the most sacred of all the institutions of democracy - the electoral system. The electorate who gave him a resounding vote of no confidence in this election for this type of behavior are obviously taking note and will, at the next opportunity, reinforce their disgust. 

It is insructive to view the latest poll on the percentage of voters that believe that Trump should have a second term. Only thirty seven percent are prepared to give him the nod. Maybe this represents the beginning of the erosion of his base.