RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/11/the_totalitarian_democracy_of_stacey_abrams.html

“Democracy has failed in Georgia,” said Stacey Abrams in what hardly could be called a concession speech after a ballot recount confirmed that the Republican candidate, Brian Kemp, had defeated her in Georgia’s gubernatorial contest.

Of course, democracy did not fail in Georgia. The voters made their voices heard at the ballot box, and Ms. Abrams did not like what she heard.

The late Israeli historian J. L. Talmon called such behavior “totalitarian democracy” or “messianic democracy,” which found its origins in the French Revolution when the extremists arrogated to themselves the unfettered right to interpret the will of the people. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about this when he observed that those who made the French Revolution always spoke in the name of the people, without in the least having bothered to consult them.

Talmon’s theme was that in totalitarian democracy there exists a general will, an abstraction that is known to elites who divine what the people really want and assume the right to speak in the name of the people. In totalitarian democracy, the elite are not the people’s representatives but their messiahs.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/floridas-close-election-call-1542579560

The Democratic candidates for Governor and U.S. Senate in Florida finally conceded on the weekend, 11 days or so after the final votes were cast. A machine recount in both races, and then a hand recount in the Senate race, made clear that Andrew Gillum and Senator Bill Nelson lacked a path to victory against Republicans Ron DeSantis and Rick Scott.

This spares the country from what would have been a polarizing fight had either Democrat made up tens of thousands of votes to prevail after Election Day. But that possibility was closer than it should have been as Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias tried to have tens of thousands of ballots counted in violation of normal election rules.

Mr. Elias used the counting follies in Democratic Broward and Palm Beach counties to demand that the legal deadlines be extended for vote counting and for mail-in ballots. Broward elections had to be ordered by courts to disclose how many votes they had left to count and what kind of votes they were. Mail-in ballots are valid if they arrive within 10 days of the election as a concession to voters serving in the U.S. military, but Mr. Elias was hoping to extend the election indefinitely as Democrats hunted for more votes somewhere, anywhere.

Federal Judge Mark Walker was right to enforce regular vote-counting order. In the end Mr. DeSantis won by a little more than 33,000 votes and Mr. Scott led by 10,033 after the manual recount on Sunday.

One lesson is that Florida needs to tighten up on its absentee and provisional ballot rules. Democrats like to say “count every vote,” which they use to suggest that black voters are being disenfranchised. But turnout this year was a record for a midterm election.

The far greater opportunity for cheating, and thus a greater threat to democratic legitimacy, is if politicians can change the election rules after votes have been cast.

The continuing vote counting clown show in Broward County, as 2000 ballots now are declared missing, is an outright embarrassment to the vote fraud deniers in the media and politics. Elections supervisor Brenda Snipes has screwed up so many things so often that the charitable interpretation is that she is utterly incompetent. The less forgiving explanation would be that she is crooked. Either way, the gates are open to those who would want to fix elections when ballot security, keeping provisional ballots separate, and other fundamental issues of security are absent.
Sarah Chakales @sechakales

As of 1:30pm we still haven’t seen or heard from Dr. Snipes. The Canvassing Board gave her until 1pm to present her findings regarding 2040 missing ballots. At noon, the #Broward SOE asserted the missing ballots are in the building. But again, she has yet to reappear. #FLRecount

Naturally, she is playing victim. The Guardian reports:

A top elections official in Florida who endured national humiliation after missing a midterms recount deadline by two minutes has told the Guardian that racism is “probably” a factor in the backlash against her.

The banner under which Snipes told the media about the missing ballots tells a story of its own:

Screen grab via Twitter

If that isn’t self-promotion, what is it? Her name is in type multiple times the size of that indicating her office.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/gillum-concedes-florida-governor-race/

Democratic candidate Andrew Gillum conceded Florida’s gubernatorial race Saturday to Republican Ron DeSantis.

“R.J. and I wanted to take a moment to congratulate Mr. DeSantis on becoming the next governor of the great state of Florida,” Gillum said in a video posted to Facebook. “This has been the journey of our lives.”

The Tallahassee mayor conceded the race to DeSantis, a former Florida representative, on election night but backtracked as more votes were counted and the race appeared closer than originally thought.

However, DeSantis was still about 30,000 votes ahead after a machine recount.

President Trump appeared to anticipate Gillum’s loss, saying earlier on Twitter than the candidate is a “strong Democrat warrior” and will be a “force to reckon with.”

The sometimes acrimonious race was one of several high-profile midterm races in Florida and saw the two opponents trade barbs over the Parkland shooting and even veer into racial controversies.

“Stay tuned,” Gillum said. “The fight for Florida continues.”

https://pjmedia.com/trending/dem-staffers-in-fl-lawyer-up-as-feds-pursue-voter-fraud-investigation/

Oh, you stupid Republican conspiracy theorists! What’s happening in the counting of ballots in Florida is perfectly normal — just earnest and honest people determined to count every vote and protect democracy.

Then why are they all hiring lawyers?

Politico:

The issue arose after state party staff sent voters forms that are intended to fix vote-by-mail ballots that had been initially rejected. Those forms, which are official state documents, were sent with altered dates, leading the Florida Department of State to turn over the paperwork to several U.S. attorneys and request an inquiry into the “irregularities.”

After saying earlier in the week that the state officials were trying “divert attention” away from the Department of State, which is part of Gov. Rick Scott’s administration, the Democrats on Friday took a different approach: They lawyered up.

“Upon receiving notice of the allegations that the form was incorrect, FDP took immediate steps, including hiring an independent investigator to review the issues at hand,” attorney Mark Herron said in a statement provided by a party spokeswoman. “As soon as we know the results of the investigation we will advise you.”

Yeah, we know. You’ll get back to us on that.

Under state law governing “fraudulent practices,” it’s a third-degree felony to “knowingly and willfully … make or use any false document, knowing the same to contain any false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry” connected to the Department of State. While the fraud statute is not contained in the state’s election code, it relates to the 2018 election because the affidavit in question concerned the elections division, which falls under the Department of State.

The case was referred to investigators at the urging of Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and Scott, both of whom raised concerns about fraud in the election. Their suspicions, however, revolved around tens of thousands of ballots that had been cast in Broward County and, to date, the elections division, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and a judge all say they’ve seen no credible evidence of fraud.

Since Broward was one of the original counties targeted by Democrats to “cure” absentee ballots by using an altered form, investigators are obviously not looking very hard to find any fraud.

The issue was discussed in a number of internal party emails that have since become public, including one from Democratic staffer Jennifer Kim, who explained “the voters must print the form and sign it by hand.”

After sending the statement from Heron Friday, Caroline Rowland, the party’s communication director, did not respond to questions about whether Kim had been fired. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://pjmedia.com/trending/3000-votes-disappear-from-florida-recount-tally/

The New York Times is reporting that a discrepancy of 3000 ballots exists between the number of votes originally reported and the tally after the recount was finished on Friday.

Does it surprise anyone that the counties with the largest discrepancy are Democratic counties?

The discrepancy in votes is especially pronounced in Broward and Palm Beach counties. Here are some highlights from the Times report:

None of the discrepancies would be enough to affect the outcome of the three statewide and three local elections that are still waiting for a winner to be called. But they come as at least three Florida counties — two of them Democratic strongholds whose results could be decisive — have reported problems counting their shares of the more than 8.1 million ballots cast across the state.

In one of the most serious cases, Palm Beach County found “dozens of precincts missing a significant number” of votes during the machine recount, according to the supervisor of elections, Susan Bucher, causing the county to conclude that entire boxes of ballots may not have been counted.

Wow. Just wow.

How’s this for absolute stupidity?

Ms. Bucher blamed an overheated and outdated ballot-scanning machine. But the manufacturer of the high-speed scanner used in Palm Beach said its technicians had witnessed Palm Beach County elections workers, apparently worried that one of the machines was running too fast, jam a paper clip into the scanner’s “enter” button in an effort to slow it down. That, in turn, caused a short circuit that cut off the power, a company spokeswoman said.

Bucher should pitch a sitcom to network execs. They wouldn’t even need a laugh track.

The difference in Broward County was 0.29 percent — higher than the margin between the candidates in both the Senate and agriculture commissioner’s races.

“This is a big deal,” said E. John Sebes, founder of Open Source Election Technology, a nonprofit group in San Francisco that promotes accuracy and security in the vote-counting process. “If you have an election margin of 0.21 percent and a variance of 0.12 percent, the variance of your machine count is half the margin you are trying to correct. That’s kooky.”CONTINUE AT SITE

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2018/11/16/its-over-recounts-show-rick-scott-gaining-votes-despite-democrats-malfeasance-and-incompetence-n2536075?

We’re a week-and-a-half past election day, and Florida Democrats are still refusing to concede the gubernatorial and Senate races they’ve almost certainly lost. Because the GOP’s victory margins were quite thin, mandatory recounts were triggered — but those margins are still large enough (roughly 34,000 and 13,000 in the governor and Senate contests, respectively) that the outcomes are not in doubt. Following the required machine recounts, apparent newly-elected Senator Rick Scott actually gained a few dozen votes, while apparent Governor-elect Ron DeSantis lost a total of…one vote. Via an Orlando Sentinel reporter:
Gray Rohrer@GrayRohrer

Machine recount totals out for three races. By my count, Scott’s lead in US Senate grew by 41 votes; DeSantis’ lead for governor dropped by 1 vote; Fried’s lead for agriculture commission fell by 19 votes

In reality, Scott should have gained hundreds of additional votes, but two Democratic counties — Broward and Hillsborough — missed their submission deadlines, thus reverting back to their previous, less accurate (and less Scott-favorable) counts:

✔@harrisalexc

HOLD UP. Broward just said they were actually 2 minutes late so their first total will count, *not* the recount. Also the discrepancy of 2,040 votes was due to a “comingling of ballots,” said Joseph D’Alessandro

It looks like Broward will seek to use the updated tally baseline to resolve its final number, after the hand recount takes place. Palm Beach County, another Democratic stronghold, missed its deadline, too. A cynic might say that it almost looked as if they were trying to do so. A judge rejected Democrats’ extension requests. All of this comes on the heels of a shocking story about apparent coordinated voter fraud machinations from Florida Democrats. There must be a full investigation into this:

A day after Florida’s election left top state races too close to call, a Democratic party leader directed staffers and volunteers to share altered election forms with voters to fix signature problems on absentee ballots after the state’s deadline. The altered forms surfaced in Broward, Santa Rosa, Citrus and Okaloosa counties and were reported to federal prosecutors to review for possible election fraud as Florida counties completed a required recount in three top races. But an email obtained by the USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida shows that Florida Democrats were organizing a broader statewide effort beyond those counties to give voters the altered forms to fix improper absentee ballots after the Nov. 5 deadline. Democratic party leaders provided staffers with copies of a form, known as a “cure affidavit,” that had been modified to include an inaccurate Nov. 8 deadline. One Palm Beach Democratic activist said in an interview the idea was to have voters fix and submit as many absentee ballots as possible with the altered forms in hopes of later including them in vote totals if a judge ruled such ballots were allowed.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/11/ocasiocortez_turning_into_a_nightmare_for_congressional_dems.html

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is claiming that she is being discriminated against by House Democrats, implying racism. It turns out that she not only brings lots of media attention, she also carries a truckload of attitude.

James Barrett of the Daily Wire:

The nation’s youngest congresswoman has also been sounding the alarm over racism and sexism she suggests she’s already experienced on Capitol Hill.

Conservative Arthur Schwartz thinks she is lying:

This can easily be sorted out. But the victimology of her demand that “Next time try believing women + people of color when they talk about their experiences being a woman or person of color” is a shot across the bow of Nancy Pelosi and the entire House leadership.

She is signaling her willingness to Mau-Mau anyone who offends her even in the most trivial way. With all the attention the media loves to lavish on her, she is able to make endless trouble, and threaten the broad strategy of the Democratic Party: serve the interests of billionaires by garnering the votes of minorities and the poor with appeals to identity politics and free stuff/

The Daily Wire has a telling photograph of Ocasio-Cortez standing apart from a group of other Representatives. Click here to see it.

Boy, I bet that Nancy Pelosi sure misses Joe Crowley, the fourth-ranking member of the House Democratic Caucus that was defeated by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the primary in a majority-minority Congressional district in New York City.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-gerrymander-excuse-implodes-1542412885

Elections have a way of blowing up partisan conceits—see what happened to the Democratic Party’s Electoral College “lock” in 2016. This year Democrats busted one of their own cherished myths by proving that Republican gerrymanders weren’t preventing them from retaking the House of Representatives. There’s a lesson here for voters and judges.

State legislatures have been drawing congressional boundaries to favor one party or another since America’s founding. During the 40 years of sustained Democratic control of the House in the late 20th century, this worked in the Democrats’ favor. As political scientist Matt Grossmann has shown, Democrats sometimes enjoyed congressional majorities nearly 10 percentage points larger than their share of the House popular vote.

Then came the Republican romp of 2010, followed by the Census and the regular 10-year redistricting to reflect population ebb and flow across the U.S. The new GOP majorities in several states drew districts that increased their representation in the House, as Democrats also did where they had a partisan advantage.

For many commentators the post-2010 redistricting created a crisis of democracy by supposedly locking Democrats out of power. Days before the 2018 election the New York Times’ David Leonhardt cited Republican gerrymandering as evidence that the U.S. could “slide toward Hungarian autocracy.”

Well, so much for that. Democrats last week made their largest gain in House seats since 1974 and appear to be closing in on a 233-seat House majority with several races still not called. This means Democrats will hold about 53.6% of seats—a 7.1% edge. And, what do you know, Democratic House candidates nationwide have 52.8% of votes—7.3% more than Republicans, according to the latest Cook Political Report tally.