Video proof that Donald Trump knows nothing about American election systems.

Anyone who believes that Donald Trump is actually an expert on voting by mail, or voting in person, or voting at all, should watch this video of a very short-tempered Trump voting in person (or attempting to vote in person) at various locations on the Upper East Side of New York in November 2004 ... with a camera crew and Billy Bush (of Access Hollywood tape infamy) at his side. While he does finally vote (or at least fill out a provisional ballot) by the end of the video, this still doesn't inspire a lot of confidence about his knowledge and familiarity with the mechanics of the process that he is now questioning every day as we approach the 2020 election (just as he had prior to the 2016 election when he believed he was going to lose).

The frame of this video is interesting too. Billy Bush and his co-host Kit Hoover are in the Access Hollywood studio on election day of 2012 looking back at Donald's antics of 2004 and giving an update about Donald's current (2012) racist attempt to get Barack Obama to release his college transcripts and passport documents.

"Your vote is one vote. His vote is a GIANT vote." --Billy Bush, Election Day 2004

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NOTE:

An earlier version of this was posted here on the True Blue Liberal blog on October 21, 2016, because plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose in Trumpworld.

Is there any proof that Donald Trump ever voted (before voting for himself)?

Trump on Facebook, 13 August 2016, promising to
change system from "Rigged" to "Fixed."

It was strange when Ivanka and Eric Trump couldn't figure out the rules for voting as Republicans in this spring's New York primary (I figured out how to switch from "No Party" to "Democratic" even without my father running), but maybe voting has never been a high priority within the Trump family before 2016.

This feeling was reinforced when Donald Trump said the following to Bill O'Reilly as he started his latest free-fall in the polls:

“The whole thing with voter ID identification I think is really — I mean people are going to walk in, they are going to vote 10 times maybe. Who knows? They are going to vote 10 times. I am very concerned and I hope the Republicans are going to be very watchful and I hope the authorities are going to be very watchful.” --Trump on Fox News, August 2

Who knows? Anyone who has ever been at an actual local polling station knows that this sort of casual "going to vote 10 times maybe" would be impossible. I've only voted in five different places in two states (New York and New Jersey). None of them ever required photo IDs, but once you signed your name in the book, there would be no way to sign twice (or ten times) without having created multiple identities at multiple addresses in advance. How could a significant number of people be recruited to commit these crimes?

By this week in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump was keeping the same conspiracy theories alive, though now admitting that the thousands or millions of vote fraudsters might only be voting half as many times:

"We're gonna watch Pennsylvania. Go down to certain areas and watch and study and make sure other people don't come in and vote five times. ... The only way we can lose, in my opinion -- and I really mean this, Pennsylvania -- is if cheating goes on. I really believe it." --Trump in Altoona, Pennsylvania, August 12

Trump is currently down by more than 9 points in the latest Keystone State polls, and he has never led there, but if he loses in November it will only be due to "those people" voting 5 or 10 times? This is dangerous anti-democratic and anti-American demagoguery aimed at the most credulous elements of his uneducated base of supporters, and it will be amplified by the Republican spokespeople of Fox News who still harbor fictions about Romney losing Pennsylvania because of fraud.

Now, even though every polling place already has official poll watchers from both parties at every local site (something that most 70-year-olds with a lifetime of voting behind them would probably know), Donald J. Trump is asking supporters on his website today to volunteer as "Trump Election Observers" to "Help Me Stop Crooked Hillary From Rigging This Election!"

As seen on donaldjtrump.com on August 13, 2016.

There has never been more of a need for an absolute landslide for Hillary Clinton. Every vote in every state counts in 2016. A decisive electoral college victory will not be enough to convince the most hardcore conspiracy theorists, but a popular vote burial of trumpism will insure that the conspiracy theorists might remain a very small nutcase fringe rather than a main current of Republican thought.

And are we ever going to see any documentary proof that Donald Trump visited an actual polling place before he voted for himself in 2016?
(UPDATE 10/21/16: Click to see video of DJT and Billy Bush voting in 2004.)

Election Fraud? Or an unexpected groundswell for Joe Biden?

I wish I had made a screenshot a few days ago, because the last time I looked at the summer sidebar poll, the only votes were for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Dennis Kucinich, with the Democratic hopefuls running in that order. Now, as a commenter to the previous blog entry pointed out, Joe Biden has jumped from last to first, showing either a great groundswell of support for the Senator from Delaware, or the work of one dedicated fan who knows how to vote more than once on Pollhost.
Here's a screenshot from June 2.
Is it time to reset the results and start from scratch, or should we just live with the fact that, in this electronic age, election fraud is going to be as common on meaningless internet Presidential preference polls as it is in Florida and Ohio elections, and American Idol phone-in contests?