Tonight we're on the eve of
American voters' last chance to
cast their ballots in this
critical midterm election at
stake. Control of the U.S. House of
representatives, control of the
U.S. Senate, plus control of
governors' mansions in state
houses all across United States.
The polls and political history
point to a likely good night for
Republicans.
Since 1990, the president's
party has lost seats in the
house, sometimes in the dozens,
when the president's approval
rating falls below 50%.
And Biden's sure is below 50%.
Trying to ride that momentum,
sources tell CNN that Donald
Trump has been discussing with
aides whether he should announce
his 2024 presidential campaign
tonight.
It's all unknown as of now, but
what is clear, we probably will
not know the results in a number
of the elections tomorrow night.
It will likely take days to
count all the ballots.
So, what to watch out for in the
meantime?
Beware of bad actors who will
try to take advantage of these
delays to spread false
conspiracies about election
fraud.
Let's take a moment to go back
to election night two years ago,
when then-president Donald Trump
was raving at 2:30 A.M. About a
stolen election before millions
of your votes had even been
counted.
>> This is a fraud on the
American public.
Frankly, we did win this
election.
>> Nope.
You didn't.
But you did manage to convince a
large part of the American
public that mail-in ballots were
a major source of fraud.
No credible evidence was ever
presented to suggest any major
fraud that would have changed
the outcome of any election.
That's the fact.
Each state has its own set of
rules about mail-in voting.
Some states allow election
officials to open the envelopes
and count mail-in ballots even
before election day.
Florida, Texas, North Carolina.
Others, such as Pennsylvania and
Wisconsin, you cannot count them
until election day.
In fact, election workers there
are not even allowed to open the
envelopes that contain these
ballots and prepare them to be
counted.
This means in early returns,
some viewers may be misled.
In October 2020, we tried to
explain how this all might play
out.
>> Whether you call it the red
mirage or the blue shift, you
can expect early election night
results to look pretty different
from the final outcome.
This will not be a sign of fraud
or irregularity, just the
inevitability of mail-in
ballots, early voting, and
various state rules about when
those ballots can be counted.
So, election night it might look
like trump is romping in, say,
Pennsylvania, because they
haven't counted all these
democratic leaning ballots.
Or on election night, it might
look like Biden was romping in
Ohio and Texas because those
states counted their early
ballots before the election,
which Democrats used
disproportionately. And that's how it all played
out. That all happened.
The difference being that Biden
didn't claim he really had won
Ohio and Texas.
Here's former Fox News Chris
Stier Walt before the January
6th committee talking about
preparing fox viewers for the
red mirage.
>> We have gone to pains -- and
I'm proud of the pains we went
to -- to make sure that we were
informing viewers that this was
going to happen.
Happens every time.
>> Trump's own attorney general,
bill Barr, testified that he
knew this would happen too.
>> People had been talking for
weeks and everyone understood
for weeks that that was going to
be what happened on election
night.
>> But Donald Trump was not
satisfied with the red mirage.
He wanted a red reality.
And when he didn't get one, he
launched a mad cap campaign of
deranged election lies.
Today marks two years since
trump tweeted that his attorney,
Rudy Giuliani, would hold a
press conference on alleged
voter fraud to be held at the
four seasons, Philadelphia.
This event ended up actually
being held at a place called
four seasons total landscaping,
just north of the -- bridge in
the strip mall with the sex shop
across the street from the
crematorium, not the fancy four
seasons hotel in center city.
>> I'm here on behalf of the
trump campaign, as attorney for
the president, to describe to
you the first part of a
situation that is extremely,
extremely troubling.
>> That farce was extremely
troubling, but not for the
reasons that Giuliani cited.
Those lies became dangerous.
They incited a mob and
culminated in the violent
attempt to overturn the election
on January 6.
These efforts to disenfranchise
voters based on allegations that
do not stand up to scrutiny,
they have already started in
this election.
Today, a Michigan judge rejected
a bid by the Republican
candidate for secretary of
state, Kristina karamo, who
wanted to throw out absentee
ballots in the largely
democratic city of Detroit.
Chief judge Timothy Kenny look
at a look at her claims and
ruled, quote, while it is easy
to hurl accusations of
violations of law and corruption
rings it is another matter to
come forward and produce the
evidence that our constitution
and laws require.
Plaintiffs failed in a full day
of evidentiary hearing to
produce any shred of evidence,
unquote.
Wild claims, no actual evidence.
We've seen that film before.
Speaking of which, we can ignore
the claims coming from some of
the United States' adversaries.
Today Russian oligarch pri goes
Yan, appeared to admit to
interfering in U.S. Elections in
response to a journalists'
question about meddling in
elections tomorrow.
He said on social media, quote,
gentlemen, we interfered, we
interfere, and we will interfere
carefully, precisely, surgely,
in our own way as we know how.
During our pinpoint operations,
we will remove both the kidneys
and the liver at once, unquote.
What he is talking about is
unknown.
Maybe he was joking.
Maybe there is another big
Russian disinformation campaign
out there.
Either way, what you need to
keep in mind, the reality,
elections are complicated.
They can be imperfect.
Counting your votes can take
time.
Brew some coffee, sit down, let
the elections workers do the job
of counting your votes because
at the end of the day, your
voice matters.
>> It's a civic duty.