In the LA mayoral race, it was painful to watch all those Nithya Raman ballots coming in after election day in a “statistically impossible” manner. Why, it looked as if the Democrats were counting up after the election how many ballots were needed to oust Republican Spencer Pratt from second place and the runoff. But there is a silver lining.
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MSM reporters have their talking-point orders to question MAGA politicians — sometimes at the beginning of the interview and often with a smirk on their face — about Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign or another prominent race: “Do you believe election fraud overturned the election results?” “Do you believe the election was ‘rigged’?” It is meant as a trap. It may be very tempting to respond “Yes” with some great points like these:
- Virtually no other country — even leftist ones — allows ballot-harvesting, mass mail-in ballots, ballots accepted after election day, no secure voter ID requirement, etc.
- Whether it’s a court, a concerned citizen, or a voter group, it is very hard and time-consuming to prove enough ballots were fraudulent to overturn an election. Which doesn’t mean that the level of fraud didn’t happen.
- The slack rules and difficulty proving an election was overturned encourage cheating. Why should states be allowed to use those slack rules and inject doubt among many voters?
- Why do 85% of voters support legitimate voter ID?
But the reality is, probably right after the “Yes” and before being able to recite the bullet points, the reporter will pounce with the following follow-up question: “How can you say it was rigged when no court has overturned the results of an election due to fraud?” at which point the reporter successfully paints a picture to his or her low-information viewers that the interviewee is a nutty conspiracy theorist and sore loser. (If a court ever does overturn the results, you just know they’d then say it was a right-wing partisan judge, so it doesn’t prove anything.) The bad optics are probably why Pratt seemingly is not contesting the results, and why many MAGA politicians either end the interview, as Trump did with Kristen Welker, or else answer, “I don’t want to talk about that. Let’s move on.”
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But something changed with all those late Raman ballots coming in: While Trump said the results were “not possible,” and Vice President Vance said they looked “pretty shady to me,” even some non-MAGA personalities, such as Bill O’Reilly and Meghan McCain, admitted it looked suspicious. A U.S. attorney investigating possible California election fraud may make the Democrats a bit more nervous than usual this time, although the Democrats know that proving that fraudulent behavior overturned an election is still very unlikely.
So the next time a smart-alecky reporter asks if this or that election was rigged, ask how it could be that in the prominent LA race for mayor, an overwhelming chunk of late-in-the-day votes came in for distant third-place Raman (and not frontrunner Karen Bass), who had already conceded, no less, magically pushing her into second place and knocking Spencer Pratt out. In this context, follow up with the bullet points above, being sure to insist that the reporter respond and refusing to proceed with the interview until a response is obtained. Maybe add another bullet point asking why the MSM never grilled Hillary Clinton and Stacey Abrams after they claimed their voters were suppressed or the election was rigged. MSM reporters will never concede that an election a Republican lost was rigged, but, just for a change, make them the ones to feel uncomfortable.
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W.A. Eliot is a pseudonym
Image: Thomas Nast