We all knew that President Elect Donald Trump’s inability to stay off twitter would get him into trouble sooner or later, but it was a surprise to most that it happened this soon after the election (I guess he finally got his phone back from his staffers).
On November 27th he tweeted out “In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally” apparently in response to a recount of ballots in several states that has been pushed by Green Party nominee Dr. Jill Stein, and is now being supported by the Clinton campaign as well. (It is worth noting that this “recount” is unlikely to actually change anything, and is thus more of an “audit” of the election to identify any impropriety or flaws that may have occurred. He went on to say tweet “Serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California - so why isn't the media reporting on this? Serious bias - big problem!”
First of all it is worth pointing out that Trump’s statement is absolutely, one hundred percent false. PolitiFact ruled it “pants on fire” and almost every media outlet, watchdog group, and civic organization responded with confusion and rejected Trump’s assertion. Even GOP lawmakers have come out against him.
Clinton, as of November 28th, is ahead in the popular vote by roughly 2.24 million votes. She currently has 64,654,483 ballots cast for her, while Trump has 62,418,820 (with 7,192,036 going to other third party and independent candidates). This is an absolutely massive lead which continues to grow as the days pass.
Now, as Trump has consistently, and accurately pointed out, the popular vote does not actually determine the President. That’s not to say it isn’t an indicator of popular will, but the reality is that it has very little, if any, practical impact. Trump is also correct in stating that his share of the popular vote might have been significantly higher if he had campaigned more vigorously in certain areas, though even that may not have made much of a significant difference.
But almost three million illegal ballots cast in Clinton’s favor? Now that is a different story entirely, one that is absolutely untrue.
The story seems to originate with the controversial and disreputable Alex Jones of InfoWars (imagine Breitbart if it was significantly worse and unmoored from reality or morality). Jones has been on the forefront of some of the weirder conspiracy theories in recent years, such as President Obama enacting a top secret military coup in Texas using Special Forces to seize control of the state, that the government was putting chemicals in the water that turned frogs gay in order to push same sex marriage research, and that the Sandy Hook shooting was a “false flag” operation by the government to allow them to enact gun control.
Jones reported that there were over three million illegal cotes cast for Clinton, citing a nonexistent report and seemingly random, unverifiable tweets from an individual who claimed to have information but refused to share it.
It is important to note that noncitizen voting is an almost nonexistent problem in American elections. A PolitiFact report found that from the entire time from 2000 to 2011 there were only 56 cases of noncitizens voting in elections. 56 cases over 11 years. In elections in which million of people participate those votes aren’t enough to eve register, much less make any difference whatsoever.
Trump’s unhinged and irrational tweets, besides giving us an insight into how thin skinned our President Elect truly is, may also give us a preview of how President Trump’s administration plans to approach the issue of voting rights.
These baseless claims of noncitizen voting and in person voter fraud, which have been promoted by Trump and the GOP respectively, while they have no grounding in reality or fact, could be used in order to further restrict voting rights across the country. In person voter fraud has already been used as n excuse to enact strict and sweeping voter ID laws in several states, laws which were transparently crafted in order to disenfranchise Democratic voters. In fact a Republican Pennsylvania State Assembly said that the states voter ID law would allow Mitt Romney to win the White House in 2012.
Trump could go even further than the states, especially with the power of a Republican House and Senate on his side. They could fail to modernize the recently gutted Voting Rights Act, or simply fail to enforce certain tenants of it, allowing States to get away with far more voter disenfranchisement. He could appoint Justices to the Supreme Court who are far from proponents of voting rights, allowing states to get away with more and more restrictive practices. He could fail to act to modernize the voting system and fail to address flaws, such as outdated technology or a flawed registration system, while continuing to use those as a sign that he actually won the popular vote (which, again, he didn’t).
So yes, Donald Trump’s tweets were irrational and untrue, stemming from the fevered mind of a racist, delusional conspiracy theorist who thinks that Obama wants to true frogs gay. But they, along with his previous statements, signal a far deeper concern. A massive crackdown on voting rights and access seems likely under President Trump, and anyone who believes in free, fair, and open elections needs to stand up and make their voice heard.
