I laughed when Trump announced that the Chinese “hacked” a hundred million US voter files — voter’s address, party preference etc. If China spent money to hack this info, they overspent because THIS INFORMATION IS PUBLIC, available to anyone on request — tho’ some states simply post a big fat DOWNLOAD LIST button.
Trump breathlessly told us there are “hundreds of thousands of non-citizens” voting. Trump is demanding states use the Department of Homeland Security database to remove “alien” voters. In fact, before the 2012 election, Florida purged 172,000 voters from the rolls, using the DHS list of deportees. Yet, in the end, Florida charged only ONE voter (an Austrian Republican) with this crime — but thousands of “Luis Garcia’s” lost their vote.
See Trump-Musk Order Will Cost 21 Million Their Vote
Trump also cites a Russian influence campaign — maybe, but that was FOR Trump, Putin’s toyboy.
He cited Venezuelan influence on voting machines. Sorry, Donny, Venezuela-backed Smartmatic was used in only one single jurisdiction: Los Angeles. That overturned the 2020 election?
Finally: Trump pulled out that old chestnut that US voting machines and tabulators are “extremely vulnerable to attack.” FACT: Over 98% of all U.S. voters use paper ballots.
What is sad is that there are White Progressives (and they’re always white) who are still hawking that canard about vulnerable voting machines. I’ve warned for years that Trump and the Right-Wing would parrot this Left-Wing BS. Elections HAVE been stolen…by Trump, through good old Jim Crow tactics.
See Trump Lost. Vote Suppression Won
The proof of election manipulation — mostly through mass purges of voters of color from registration rolls — is contained in the 2020 and 2024 election data releases by the Elections Assistance Commission, our key source of hard numbers. It is no accident that Trump fired all EAC commissioners and effectively shut down the agency just days ago, before his speech.
Well, I’ve stopped laughing.
By Greg Palast