Earlier today, Sean Hannity and CNN’s Brian Stelter got into a Twitter feud after Stelter blasted the Fox News host for not pushing back on Donald Trump saying the 2016 election will be rigged:
Essay: Trump is sowing doubt about the legitimacy of the election. It's dangerous. Press has a duty to challenge him https://t.co/V6CCyZIfdF
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) August 7, 2016
Hannity fired back referencing a 2012 article in the Philadelphia Inquirer that found 59 of Philadelphia’s 1,687 election districts didn’t cast a single vote for Mitt Romney:
https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/762325099785486337
https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/762344313724502016
FWIW, this is old news. FactCheck.org looked at the claim in 2013 and found nothing wrong:
It’s not mathematically impossible. The 59 districts are in areas of the city that are mainly African American, as the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. And Obama received 93 percent of the black vote nationwide.
In 2008, Obama received 100 percent of the vote in 57 districts in Philadelphia. So it was not that unusual that something similar happened this time around. In fact, Inquirer reporters had a tough time tracking down any registered Republicans in these areas.
To be clear, these districts make up a small subset of all of Philadelphia. The 59 that went 100 percent for Obama in 2012 constitute 19,605 votes, just 3 percent of the total votes cast in the city.
Anyway, this brings us to Ryan Godfrey, an alleged election inspector who took issue with Hannity’s questioning of the 2012 results and offered a 24-point explainer on why he was wrong:
1. I'm an inspector of elections for a Philly voting division. Independent but was a Republican as recently as June. https://t.co/pd82mOkEKh
— Ryan Godfrey (@rgodfrey) August 7, 2016
2. People like me sign off on election results in every division in Philly. We take job seriously: certifying the accurate will of people.
— Ryan Godfrey (@rgodfrey) August 7, 2016
3. Claim that 59 divisions in Philadelphia engaged in electoral fraud in 2012 because no votes for Romney is absurd & personally insulting.
— Ryan Godfrey (@rgodfrey) August 7, 2016
4. First, there's absolutely no way to erase votes from the machines we use in this city.
— Ryan Godfrey (@rgodfrey) August 7, 2016
5. I've had to tell this to several parents who took kids into booth w/ them & said kids pressed VOTE button too early. Sorry, no do-overs.
— Ryan Godfrey (@rgodfrey) August 7, 2016
6. Next, we get a paper tally at the end of the night that we match against physical count of voters who used machines (like an odometer).
— Ryan Godfrey (@rgodfrey) August 7, 2016
7. We match that against the count of the individual names of voters who have signed our rolls (and whose names we also recorded in books).
— Ryan Godfrey (@rgodfrey) August 7, 2016
8.It's this paper tally we certify, display publicly & send downtown (along w/ data cartridge w/ same info) to be added to overall results.
— Ryan Godfrey (@rgodfrey) August 7, 2016
9. So, where is the opportunity for fraud, if I and my four or five colleagues of different parties are doing our jobs and not colluding?
— Ryan Godfrey (@rgodfrey) August 7, 2016
10. (And if we were colluding, we would be colluding to add votes—again, votes can't be subtracted.)
— Ryan Godfrey (@rgodfrey) August 7, 2016
11. Incidentally, poll workers have colluded to get machine count to match voter count, but it's rare & prosecuted. https://t.co/7fbUzLnTQO
— Ryan Godfrey (@rgodfrey) August 7, 2016
12. So, # of votes corresponds with # of voters, & can't be tampered with after fact, but what about having machines change R votes to D?
— Ryan Godfrey (@rgodfrey) August 7, 2016
13. It's a liability of Philadelphia's touch-screen voting machines that I can't say for certain that votes can't be switched in software.
— Ryan Godfrey (@rgodfrey) August 7, 2016
14. It's theoretically possible the Democrats that for all intents control Philly politics have surreptitiously installed
— Ryan Godfrey (@rgodfrey) August 7, 2016
15. sophisticated firmware on some? all? voting machines to change some votes from R to D or whatever.
BUT.BUT:
— Ryan Godfrey (@rgodfrey) August 7, 2016
16. Why would they ever change *ALL* R votes to D votes, when anybody who voted R could easily refute the results just by saying they had?
— Ryan Godfrey (@rgodfrey) August 7, 2016
17. It would be idiotic to do so! And indeed in 59 divisions with no recorded votes for Romney,
— Ryan Godfrey (@rgodfrey) August 7, 2016
18. The Philadelphia Inquirer couldn't find anyone who cast a vote for Romney. Anyone. https://t.co/5hmtwwP1wi
— Ryan Godfrey (@rgodfrey) August 7, 2016
19. Finally, Romney got 6.6% of the vote in my racially mixed middle-class West Philly division. 43 votes out of 653.
— Ryan Godfrey (@rgodfrey) August 7, 2016
20. How many votes should Romney have expected in those 59 almost entirely poor and almost entirely black communities w/ <1% registered Rs?
— Ryan Godfrey (@rgodfrey) August 7, 2016
21. (Running against the first black president, with very high approval ratings in the community?)
— Ryan Godfrey (@rgodfrey) August 7, 2016
22. Are you thinking like 100 votes in those 59 divisions? Because stealing those 100 votes would be extremely risky and stupid.
— Ryan Godfrey (@rgodfrey) August 7, 2016
23. And, you know, not such a great return on your highly illegal and risky activities in a city where 700,000 votes were cast.
— Ryan Godfrey (@rgodfrey) August 7, 2016
24. So yeah, fuck off very much w/ your 2012 Philly election fraud accusations. It didn't happen then & it won't happen this year, says me.
— Ryan Godfrey (@rgodfrey) August 7, 2016
Case closed?
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