Donald Trump Is Attacking the Florida Recounts Because He Hates Democracy

[Celerity]

The president is lying about “election theft” in Florida as part of a calculated strategy to shut down an essential part of the election process.

https://www.thenation.com/article/trump-florida-recounts/

Donald Trump is wrong about a lot of stuff. But there is nothing that the president is more consistently wrong about than counting votes.

Since he began campaigning for the presidency in 2015, Trump has positioned himself as a win-at-any-cost politician who delights in disregarding the minutia of electoral democracy. He invites his followers to do the same. Trump reimagines results all the time. Famously, he claimed he won a “massive landslide victory” in the 2016 election where he actually finished 2.9 million votes behind Democrat Hillary Clinton. To protect his fragile ego, the president fosters fantasies about “voter fraud.”

The president is up to his old tricks as he lambastes the officials who are counting and recounting votes in the Florida Senate race between incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson and Republican Rick Scott. That contest is in “too-close-to-call” limbo, with Scott leading by about 12,500 votes out of 8.2 million cast. The margin is just 0.15 percent. So, now, amid a flurry of confusing and contradictory reports of uncounted and miscounted votes across Florida—a state with a long history of stumbles when it comes to organizing fair and functional elections—county officials are conducting a machine recount in the Senate race.

Recounts are also proceeding in the governor’s race, where Republican Ron DeSantis has a 33,684-vote lead over Democrat Andrew Gillum, and in the contest for state secretary of agriculture, where Democrat Nikki Fried leads Republican Matt Caldwell by 5,326 votes.

The process is demanding, as the deadline for reviewing all three races is Thursday. Trump is making things harder by promoting unsubstantiated claims about fraud and portraying the process as chaotically beyond repair. The president’s solution? Repeat the folly of the 2000 Bush v. Gore Florida recount fight and simply declare the Republican the winner.

snip

[wiggs]

1. Easy case for dems to make. Replay all the musings Trumup has had about the world's dictators

and how he envies their power.

[dem4decades]

2. Could Florida learn how to design a god damn ballot?

The butterfly ballot in 2000 and now the Broward ballot. You're killing us.

[Celerity]

3. I have never lived in Florida

I live in Los Angeles atm.