President-elect Donald Trump made a baseless claim on Twitter on Sunday, and it marks the first time a president-elect has ever questioned the results of an election that he won. It also has legal and election experts aghast. Trump’s claim that he would have won the popular vote were it not for “millions” of illegal votes is troubling, at best.
Rage Against The Machine
My colleague Karen Shiebler wrote yesterday about Trump’s inane tweet, in which he claimed he won the popular vote but that “millions who voted illegally” swayed the popular vote count in former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s favor. The claim has no basis in fact. Trump may have been citing a piece from Alex Jones’ conspiracy theory website Infowars — a piece rated “false” by Politifact.
Trump either doesn’t realize or doesn’t care about the hypocrisy that’s evident when one sends out a tweetstorm in the morning about how a recount is “sad,” then says later in the day that millions of people voted illegally.
Legal experts and election experts, however, see things a bit differently. Politico spoke with several such experts:
“‘There’s no reason to believe this is true,’ said Rick Hasen, a professor specializing in election law at the University of California, Irvine. ‘The level of fraud in US elections is quite low.'”
David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research and a former senior trial attorney in the Voting Section of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, had a similar statement for Politico:
“We know historically that this almost never happens. You’re more likely to get eaten by a shark that simultaneously gets hit by lightning than to find a non-citizen voting.”
Uncharted Territory … Again
“Uncharted territory” is a phrase that has been used over and over since the election as Trump has bucked precedent at seemingly every turn. And it’s only been three weeks.
We find ourselves there once again with this latest Twitter rampage.
New York University history professor Timothy Naftali said:
“Trump is the first winning candidate to question the legitimacy of the process that gave him the White House.”
And Princeton University historian Julian Zelizer had this to say:
“…We see the victor making blanket accusation of fraud to delegitimize 2.5 million votes. Given there is no evidence to support the claim, this is simply stunning and troubling as a sign as to what he will do as president.”
Some will call this a “distraction” from Trump’s conflicts of interests. Or from his appointment of a white supremacist to his Chief Strategist position. Or his naming a known racist to the attorney general post.
Of course, all of these issues are hugely problematic, up to and including Trump’s latest rage over baseless claims of voter fraud and the popular vote.
And they all prove that this man is supremely unfit for this job.
Featured Image via screenshot from YouTube video
