Screengrab from Project Veritas.
As you may know Project Veritas has released a video showing the Democratic Commissioner of Board of Elections in New York City, Alan Schulkin, admitting that voter fraud is common in New York. He accuses the Democrats of busing people around and having them voting multiple times. He also claims that voter id laws would help prevent the fraud but the Democrats always block the laws. You can watch the video below:
The video is damning and may have repercussions for Schulkin. He said the one thing Democrats aren't allowed to say. Voter fraud is a thing that exists and voter ID laws would help prevent them. That's practically heresy for the left, and the video will probably make an impact.
But the problem goes way beyond one election commissioner in New York City. I think that this election has the potential to be seen as illegitimate by large portions of the electorate. This is a bipartisan problem as well because large swaths of the Democratic Party are worried and expecting voter fraud or other legitimacy problems as well. The GOP concerns get more coverage but I think that both sides have legitimate concerns.
Let's start with the Republicans. Obviously, this video about voter fraud confirms that their worries were at least plausible. Keep in mind, the video is just one's guys opinion and the video was him talking off the record, and not in his official capacity as a election commissioner. That being said, this video does confirm a lot of what people on the right have been saying.
But one video is just the beginning of the problems. Though Donald Trump is a very controversial candidate it is inarguable that he has come under fire from all directions. It's very obvious that some very powerful forces are openly against him. That includes the media, the Democrats and even elements of his own party. People have even incited violence against him and his supporters. There have been many reports of Trump's events and supporters being attacked and there was even an assassination attempt against the man himself.
This dates back to the primaries. There was a lot of intraparty infighting that left a bad taste in the mouths of everyone. Just to review there was what Ted Cruz did in the Iowa Caucus, where he lied about Ben Carson dropping out, a lot of dishonest attack adds and, worst of all, the last minute alliance between Ted Cruz and John Kasich in a last minute attempt to prevent Trump from winning the candidacy.
This intraparty infighting continues to this day. A lot of people on the right, including me, think that the Trump Tape was leaked by the establishment wing of the Republican Party to discredit Trump. Paul Ryan and other GOP leaders have left Trump out to dry over remarks that nobody that didn't already hate Trump cares about at all. It's an obvious attempt to discredit him and silence the will of Trump's supporters.
But it goes even further. The media has been coordinating things with the Democratic Party. One of the best things that Wikileaks has done this election is to show how deep the media is in with the Democrats. Those leaks has shown that the media lets Democrats like Hillary Clinton review stories before publishing them. It also shows that late night hosts, like Samantha Bee and John Oliver get their marching orders from the DNC.
Of course Trump supporters aren't the only ones that have a right to be upset. One of the things that Wikileaks did is show that the DNC was not playing fair with Bernie Sanders and his supporters. The media, Clinton campaign and the DNC all coordinated with each other to undermine and marginalize his voters. It's clear that the DNC broke the rules to rig the primary election in favor of Clinton. Both parties voters remember this and are expecting the behavior to continue.
Even worse, the Democrats are playing a dangerous game with Russia. Right now they are blaming every single leak, hack and exposure on the Russian government. They accuse Wikileaks and Guccifer 2.0 of being Russian agents and even go so far as implying that they are trying to rig the election in favor of Donald Trump.
I personally don't believe these rumors, especially when it comes to Wikileaks. Though I have no solid proof, I think that the DNC leak was from murdered staffer Seth Rich. There is a strong circumstantial case for it and Julian Assange all but confirmed it when speaking to European press.
But I can't disprove them and I have to admit that the Russians interfering with the election is a distinct possibility. Even if they don't, if Trump manages to win, a lot of people on the left are going to think that the Russians were at least partially responsible for the victory. And there is a real possibility that electronic voter machines could be hacked.
There is also the polling. I have said for a long time that the polling has been incredibly biased this year. They have not been honest at all and have been spotting Hillary Clinton somewhere between 1 and 5 percentage points. How? By oversampling Democrats and undersampling Republicans. Almost criminally, they have been completely undersampling one of the largest groups in the electorate, independent voters. They are also using the same demographic samples that voters had in the 2012 and 2008 elections that featured record minority turnout due to support for the first black president. That turnout isn't going to happen again.
Current polls show Hillary Clinton about 5 points ahead of Trump. I think that number is a lot closer to 1 or 2 points, a statistical tie. If Trump manages to turn the campaign around, and I think the debate was a good start, he might be able to win. If the polls show him slightly behind before election day, there is a good chance that he will win even though the polls show him losing. Having a candidate behind in the polls somehow pull back at the last second will fuel fears about Russian interference.
And it won't be much better with a Hillary Clinton. If she wins, especially in a close race, Republicans won't accept it. They will think that the Democrats, along with their allies in the media and even in the GOP, conspired to rig the election against Donald Trump. I know that I don't accept that the Trump Tapes were a big deal, and even if they were, they shouldn't be enough to let Hillary Clinton win. The real drop in the polls is due to interparty fighting and Trump's poor performance in the first debate. If Clinton wins, people will just assume that she cheated to do so.
This has huge implications for the future of America. In 2000, George Bush won the electoral college, despite losing the popular vote, and the disaster that was the Florida election led to the election being solved by the Supreme Court.
That event caused a lot of people to lose their faith in democracy. Many people on the left accused George Bush of stealing the election and it lead to a lot of outright hatred directed at the GOP. It was a major reason that the tone of elections has gotten worse and worse each year.
When it happens again this year, regardless if it is the left or the right complaining, things will just get worse. Both the Republicans and Democrat have good reason to suspect voter fraud, foreign interference and out and out cheating this election. No matter who wins, the election will be seen as illegitimate by a good part of the electorate. And given that Washington leaks like a sieve right now, absolute proof of corruption could be reviled.
That could lead to a huge number of people thinking that they don't have a voice in their government. A lot of people already think that but this time they are going to be even more pissed off. Keep in mind, this election features two of the least popular candidates to ever run for president. Whoever wins is going to be deeply unpopular even in a fair election. If people think that they cheated to get their, well, very bad things could happen...
I personally took some vacation days right after the Tuesday election. Part of that is just to get away from everything for awhile after a tough election season and to get away from work. But I am also concerned of civil unrest following the election. I think there is going to be a large amount of pissed off people who won't accept the results. And I will be safe at home watching it happen...
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