Sanctimony, Inc. – Time was, leftists complained of rigged elections, the media paid attention to dirty tricks, and conservatives cared more about results than rhetoric

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VDH:

Donald Trump, in characteristically muddled and haphazard fashion, said he thought the election might end up “rigged” (if he lost). Therefore, he would not endorse the November8 result if he found that fear confirmed — unless, of course, in Jacksonian fashion, he managed to win.

All hell broke loose, from both the Left and principled conservatives, that Trump’s allegations had somehow undermined the American electoral process itself.

Not likely.

Questioning the integrity of election votes was a national pastime in 1824 (“corrupt bargain”), 1876 (“compromise of 1877”), and again in 1960. Bitching over losing, of course, is not the same thing as armed insurrection in the fashion of 1860, when furor erupted over Lincoln’s election.

Any candidate, whether feeding conspiracies or out of genuine concern for electoral misconduct, can say whatever he or she wishes, without the deleterious national consequences that pundits decry. Bad sportsmanship and manners are not synonymous with constitutional subversion.

“Selected, not elected” was a Democratic talking point after the 2000 Bush victory. In a speech two years after that election, a now sanctimonious Hillary Clinton echoed those “selected” charges against the Bush presidency. But so what?

In 2004, the trope that Ohio was rigged and thus cost John Kerry the election was standard liberal boilerplate. An embittered Kerry was the sore loser that Trump will be if he comes up short. Kerry’s friend columnist Mike Barnicle was quoted years later of Kerry’s inability to accept legitimate defeat: “For a long period, after 2004, every time he even half fell asleep, all he saw was voting machines in the state of Ohio.”

Let us hope that Trump does not become as unhinged as Al Gore became — for years, the former vice president could not speak publicly without screaming in vein-bulging style, and seemed to be obsessed by George W. Bush in Carthago delenda est fashion.

Indeed, in the last week after the Trump blunderbuss declaration, an entire mini industry has emerged, chronicling prior examples of Democrats questioning election results or alleging past evidence of voting fraud.

It would, of course, have been wiser for Trump to worry out loud about localized corruption, rather than to suggest in conspiratorial fashion that a nationwide cabal was devoted to rigging the election. But then again, we have rarely seen anything like the recent disclosures of pathetic efforts at massaging the vote. Trump’s sin was one of magnitude, not of mischaracterizing the intent or culpability of his opponents: He is right that many wish to corrupt the voting, but hardly certain that in the key battlegrounds they are powerful enough to sway an entire state’s vote count.

Recently disgraced and resigned Democratic operatives, who were in the pay of the Democratic National Committee (and one of whom was a very frequent visitor to the Obama White House), boast on tape not only of disrupting Trump rallies by bought and staged violence but also of busing non-resident voters into Ohio to affect the vote count; they further brag that their dirty tricks are longstanding practice. When voting fraud is an act of pride rather than criminality, something has gone terribly wrong.

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Just when you think we have reached the pinnacle of left wing corruption, we get another, worse, example of why all the suspicions are well founded. A corrupt administration protecting a corrupt candidate running a corrupt campaign.

It would not be wise to unleash these criminals with federal power. It would be worse than Obama ever dreamed he could oppress.

I can still remember the reaction to the usial jerks when Bush was declared the winner back in 2000 the bunch of idiots running around accusing bush of stealing the election and that Al Gore idiot filing stupid lawsuits thats why him and Libberman were called SORE LOSERMAN

U.S. official: Hackers targeted voter registration systems of 20 states

Hackers have targeted the voter registration systems of more than 20 states in recent months, a Homeland Security Department official said Friday.

The disclosure comes amid heightened concerns that foreign hackers might undermine voter confidence in the integrity of U.S. elections. Federal officials and many cybersecurity experts have said it would be nearly impossible for hackers to alter an election’s outcome because election systems are very decentralized and generally not connected to the internet.

The official who described detecting the hacker activity was not authorized to speak publicly on the subject and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. It was unclear, the official said, whether the hackers were foreign or domestic, or what their motives might be. ABC News earlier reported that more than 20 states were targeted.

The FBI last month warned state officials of the need to improve their election security after hackers targeted systems in Illinois and Arizona. FBI Director James Comey told lawmakers this week that the agency is looking “very, very hard” at Russian hackers who may try to disrupt the U.S. election.

For some reason Trump never seems to mention that when he talks about a rigged election.

Maine Gov. LePage accused of voter intimidation after he says college students must establish residency to vote

The governor of Maine told college students Monday to establish residency in Maine if they choose to vote there, and warned that state officials would pursue every legal means to verify that students who voted were complying with state law.

That prompted critics to say he was illegally intimidating voters, and to call on federal officials to investigate.

The posters warn of “hundreds of dollars” in likely taxes and fees for students who register to vote, which Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, a Democrat, said is untrue because registration does not immediately trigger things such as excise taxes on a car.

Interesting. I wonder if they then become eligible for the lower college tuition fees charged resident students rather than the higher out-of-state student tuition. The difference is $8.370 per year for in-state students vs. $25,740 per year for out-of-state students. Maybe the governor should clarify that point.

This is the sort of crap that republicans do, while complaining about democrats rigging elections.