Today’s entry: In 2018 the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, chaired by VP Pence, was disbanded. Was fraud found in FL? If so, why wasn’t it addressed?
Bottom Line: The Presidential Advisory Commission created by the Trump administration in 2017 to review election fraud, was disbanded early 2018. At the time President Trump stated the Commission couldn’t complete its work due to a lack of cooperation by states. As a result, there were no official findings acted on by the Commission in Florida or elsewhere. I can address evidenced voter fraud from the 2016 cycle acted on by authorities using the Heritage Foundation’s voter fraud database.
Cases stemming from the cycle leading to voter fraud convictions occurred from 2016-2018. In summation, 190 criminal convictions across 42 states. That included 62 criminal convictions for voter fraud in 2016, 63 in 2017 and 65 in 2018. Included within those 42 states are all seven contested by President Trump last year and Florida.
In Florida, we had six criminal convictions for voter fraud. This speaks to the importance to examine facts rather than narrative. The facts reveal extensive, criminally prosecuted voter fraud. Narrative suggests claims of it are “baseless”. This has long been my greatest frustration on this topic and long before the controversies of the 2020 cycle. Voter fraud exists and has been pervasive in literally every election cycle. The only question is whether the fraud committed is extensive enough to alter the outcome of elections.
This exercise is also important from the perspective of understanding the context of the 2020 cycle. History suggests we won’t fully understand the extent of alleged voter fraud until next year. Comprehensive investigations take time, and the legal process does as well. This is why it’s important that reforms are put into place now. The reforms Florida undertook in Broward and Palm Beach County in the 1st quarter of 2018 are precisely the reasons we had a successful cycle last year.
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