November 09, 2018 02:49 PM UTC

Trump, Gardner's NRSC Melt Down Over AZ, FL Senate Races

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• by: Colorado Pols

Huffpost reports on the angry crossfire in Florida as the races for governor and U.S. Senator head toward a recount:

Florida Gov. Rick Scott suggested there was “rampant fraud” and called for law enforcement to investigate two counties over their election practices as the Republican’s lead in the state’s U.S. Senate race continued to shrink Thursday evening…

“Every Floridian should be concerned there may be rampant fraud happening in Palm Beach and Broward counties,” he said in a televised statement outside the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee. The governor offered no specific evidence of fraud, saying only that the counties were the only two in the state where there were irregularities.

FOX News reports that Sen. Cory Gardner’s National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) is joining Rick Scott’s lawsuit alleging fraud in Florida’s election, further clouding the Sunshine State’s political forecast:

In their lawsuit against Broward County, Scott and the National Republican Senatorial Committeee (NRSC) allege that officials there are hiding critical information about the number of votes cast and counted. And in a parallel suit against Palm Beach County, Scott and the NRSC charge that the election supervisor there illegally used her own judgment to determine voter intent when reviewing damaged or incorrectly filled-out absentee ballots, while refusing to allow impartial witnesses to monitor the process.

And in the other remaining U.S. Senate hotspot of 2018, Politico’s Burgess Everett reporting that Gardner’s NRSC is ramping up election fraud allegations in the close Senate race in Arizona, in which Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema is pulling narrowly ahead as the count grinds on:

NRSC now going there on Arizona too: “Arizona Dems’ desperation is on full display this afternoon as they shamelessly try to steal the election from Martha McSally by skewing the rules to ensure counties only get to count the ballots that favor the Dems’ darling, Kyrsten Sinema.”

— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) November 9, 2018

Earlier today, President Donald Trump actually suggested an electoral do-over in Arizona, which is insane:

Just out — in Arizona, SIGNATURES DON’T MATCH. Electoral corruption – Call for a new Election? We must protect our Democracy!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 9, 2018

Of course, here in Colorado we have mail ballots like Arizona does, and we know that the signature verification process always results in some number of ballots being rejected. In close races, these ballots are sometimes tracked back to their owners and “cured” of such deficiencies, whereupon they can become decisive votes–something we are likely to see in close Colorado House races this year in which ballots are still being counted.

With all of this in mind, Sen. Cory Gardner is once again stuck–between needing to support Republican candidates as the head of the NRSC, and the fact that these flailing charges of vote fraud look ridiculous to Colorado voters Gardner needs to immediately begin patching things up with if he has any desire to be re-elected in two years. The conflict Gardner faces is making itself evident all kinds of ways since the election, not least with the NRSC declaring itself in lockstep with the President right after Colorado dealt Trump’s (and Gardner’s) party an historic shellacking at the polls.

Colorado voters have heard these allegations countless times before. And they have never panned out.