Some in the news media are dismissing President Trump’s claim of fraud in Florida’s election, even after two judges have found impropriety with the process in specific parts of the state.
CNN political analyst Chris Cillizza on Monday called claims of corruption and “fraud” by Trump and Republicans “baseless” and said that they “tell us about how [Trump] will approach his own re-election race in 2020.”
His colleague John Avlon on Monday morning called on Florida to “count the votes. Don’t demonize the process.”
Trump returned Sunday from a weekend trip to Europe, but his mind was at least in part focused on the closely watched Florida election.
“The Florida Election should be called in favor of [Republicans] Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged,” he tweeted. “An honest vote count is no longer possible — ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!”
On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski refused to air Trump’s allegation. “You know what, no. We’re not going to read — Just take it down. What a liar,” Scarborough said.
While there has been no evidence of widespread election “fraud,” Broward County officials have admitted they mixed in roughly two dozen ineligible ballots with about 200 eligible ones, all of which were anonymous. Officials had said it was unlikely they would be able to separate the ballots.
Gov. Rick Scott has implied that election fraud could be occurring and has filed a lawsuit over claims that Broward County counted votes past the legal deadline for doing so on Saturday. He said Monday that Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., is trying to steal the election by ignoring state law on how elections are run and counting thousands of extra ballots that didn’t get counted in time.
Broward County officials were ordered by a local judge to turn over their voter rolls to the legal team representing Scott.
And in Palm Beach County, Judge Krista Marx ordered that the county make documents on “over-votes,” which occur when a person casts more votes than legally allowed, and “under-votes,” which occur when a person mistakenly or purposely declines to cast votes on every ballot or initiative.
Both Palm Beach and Broward have yet to turn in their unofficial votes to the secretary of state, who oversees the state’s elections.
Ken Detzner, the secretary, has called for all 67 of Florida’s counties to recount the ballots on the U.S. Senate race, between Scott and Nelson, and the governor race between Republican Ron DeSantis and Democrat Andrew Gillum. A recount for the state’s agriculture commissioner was also ordered.
Detzner set the deadline for Thursday, but Palm Beach election supervisor Susan Bucher has already said she doesn’t believe her county will meet the deadline, citing slow computer election equipment. In that case, Trump’s prediction could come true — Florida law holds that sections of the state that cannot complete a recount in time must present the vote totals that were announced on Saturday.
But despite all these problems, some in the media dismissed any chance of election fraud.
A New York Times article published Friday said “there was little or no evidence to suggest anything more than the usual delay and dithering” were at play in Florida.
In a Washington Post analysis, correspondent Philip Bump said Trump was trying to discredit the voting process, likening it to Trump’s repeated claim in the 2016 election that the system was “rigged.”
“The president is raising unfounded accusations of fraud to shift a result to his favor,” wrote Bump. “We’ve seen this before.”
