Texas Sen. Ted Cruz warns of Pennsylvania election fraud before vote counting starts

WASHINGTON – Sen. Ted Cruz is warning in regards to the potential for election fraud in Pennsylvania before officers have even began counting ballots.

“The way they do elections in Pennsylvania unfortunately is deeply messed up,” the Texas Republican mentioned throughout the newest version of his podcast.

As Cruz talked about his plan for watching election night time outcomes roll in, he famous that Pennsylvania’s Acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman mentioned they don’t anticipate to have all ballots counted on election night.

He known as that “utterly bizarre” and mentioned most locations within the nation depend the votes on Election Day. When it takes “Democrat strongholds” days to depend the votes, that opens the door to dishonest, he mentioned.

“It’s not complicated that if you’re counting three, four days after the election and you know the outcomes everywhere else and you know how many votes you need, it is an invitation to cheating, an invitation to misconduct. But that’s what Democrats do,” Cruz mentioned.

Chapman and election officers throughout the nation have sought to proactively counter misinformation and conspiracy theories forward of Tuesday’s midterm elections by telling the general public vote counting can take time and delays should not a sign of nefarious exercise.

Officials in Pennsylvania additionally should deal with a state regulation prohibiting the opening of mail-in ballots till Election Day.

Crossing the very fact checkers

Monday was not the primary time Cruz has questioned the time it takes some city areas to depend votes.

“Why is it only Democrat blue cities that take ‘days’ to count their votes?” Cruz tweeted on Oct. 27. “The rest of the country manages to get it done on election night.”

PolitiReality described that as a misleading claim for a number of causes.

Cruz has a degree, in line with PolitiReality, that some giant city counties noticed counting delays throughout the 2020 presidential election.

But it pushed again on options the delays are the consequence of partisanship fairly than fundamental math – these areas clearly have extra votes to depend than counties with a lot smaller populations.

PolitiReality additionally mentioned it discovered a quantity of less-populated Republican counties in Texas that lagged when it got here to counting ballots on election night time.

Cruz responded to Politifact with a string of Tweets highlighting parts of the piece acknowledging the place he was proper. He described the authors as “dishonest left-wing editorial writers.”

In his tweets, Cruz didn’t immediately deal with different factors within the piece similar to Republican counties which have been gradual to get their votes tallied.

Challenged to offer evidence of voter fraud, Republicans at occasions level to a database of such circumstances assembled by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative suppose tank.

Heritage says the database is just not meant to be complete however fairly for instance that actual, verified circumstances of voter fraud do exist.

Still, critics say the database undermines the concept election fraud is a widespread, outcome-altering problem given the circumstances included characterize a miniscule fraction of the billions of votes solid within the United States over time.

Sowing doubt

Cruz isn’t the one Republican who has been airing advance issues in regards to the legitimacy of Tuesday night time’s outcomes.

Former President Donald Trump recently posted on social media after Pennsylvania state lawmakers urged counties had mailed out a whole lot of 1000’s of unverified ballots.

Chapman responded by describing these issues as inaccurate and a misunderstanding of the law and the data.

But Trump cited the scenario as proof of fraud.

“Here we go again!” Trump wrote. “Rigged Election!”

Republican candidates in different high-profile races, together with the Senate contests in Wisconsin and Arizona, even have expressed advance skepticism in regards to the legitimacy of leads to their states.

Voters may be hit with deja vu listening to such statements.

Leading as much as the 2020 presidential election, Trump and allies laid the foundation for the concept the use of mail-in ballots and any delays in counting them have been de facto proof of voter fraud.

That got here regardless of widespread expectation that tallying mountains of mail-in ballots throughout a pandemic was more likely to encounter some difficulties.

While inflation and different financial points are dominating the minds of many citizens, President Joe Biden has devoted half of his closing midterm argument to calling out “election deniers” who proceed to query the legitimacy of his 2020 victory over Trump.

Biden on Sunday cited the various makes an attempt to problem his victory that have been shot down in court docket, many of these by Republican-appointed judges.

“With these election deniers, there are only two outcomes for any election: either they win or they were cheated,” Biden mentioned.