When President Trump suggested Democrats were trying to “steal” the election in Florida, Democrats went ballistic, accusing America’s chief executive of eroding trust in America’s electoral institutions. An MSNBC panel called Trump a “tyrant,” “autocrat,” and “dictator’ for questioning Broward County, where the controversy was concentrated.
Yet after Stacey Abrams failed to win in Georgia, many Democrats — and media talking heads — used the same terminology, claiming the election was “stolen” and that Republicans cheated.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who has signaled interest in running for president in 2020, said: “If Stacey Abrams doesn’t win in Georgia, they stole it. It’s clear. It’s clear I say that publicly, it’s clear. What they are trying to do in Florida to the gubernatorial candidate and to the Senate candidate running for re-election. What they tried to do in Ohio with some success by voter purging. What they did in Georgia when they shut down rural precincts that were predominantly African-Americans, where many people simply don’t have transportation to get to the polls. That’s what they do.”
MSNBC’s Joy Ann Reid accused Brian Kemp of “bioengineering” Georgia’s electorate to ensure his own victory: “From 2012 to 2016, Georgia under Mr. Kemp purged 1.5 million voters, just in 2017. 665,000, almost 665,000 people purged. That’s 10 percent. One in 10 registered voters. Since 2012, 214 polling places have been shut down under this guy. He essentially bioengineered an electorate that would be essentially with enough white voters and few enough voters of color to elect him.”
Former First Lady and two-time presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, likewise accused Republicans of cheating: “If she’d had a fair election, she already would have won.”
MoveOn’s Karine Jean-Pierre said Kemp won by “pick-pocketing Jim Crow”: “Stacey Abrams has been remarkable. She’s been doing this for five years. Fighting Brian Kemp, the man who basically pickpocketed Jim Crow and turned this election into a voter suppression election. He’s been blocking African-Americans from voting for some time now. He and his allies have put roadblocks, been trying to deny African-Americans from their right to vote.“
Cory Booker, another likely 2020 presidential candidate, said: “The Justice Department should be investigating that election to make sure it was fair and the decisions that were made were not to politically advantage someone, but to protect voters and the voting process. I believe right now, and again, I’m saying this from a perspective where I have not been in the weeds, but I think that Stacey Abrams’s election is being stolen from her, using what I think are insidious measures to disenfranchise certain groups of people. That’s something that all of us should be calling for.”
MSNBC’s Elise Jordan said that if international election monitors witnessed the Georgia election, they would have been horrified.
“I was in Iraq for a few elections. In Afghanistan for a presidential election. And there are election monitors all over the country, international election monitors. And what happened in Georgia, I just cannot imagine an international election monitor not raising holy hell if they had seen that internationally going on. If they had — the secretary of state of Georgia had been overseeing the administration of his own election. It is just baffling to me that we are so tolerant of just blatant conflicts of interest across the board this year in an election cycle.”
Sirius host Pete Dominick also accused Republicans of “stealing” the Georgia election: “No party is the law and order party, but clearly the Republicans try to posture themselves that way. But they use the law when it benefits them. They cheat to win elections, they disenfranchise voters.“