Surprise, surprise! Surprise, surprise!
Pennsylvania law requires that mail-in and absentee voters “fill out, date, and sign the declaration” on the mail-in ballot. The issue is whether mail-in ballots that were not properly dated or undated should be counted. Fetterman filed a federal lawsuit to overturn a ruling by the state court that such ballots should not be counted.
Lemon started by echoing Stacey Abrams’ argument in Georgia: Just because people are voting in record numbers, doesn’t mean that those eevil Republicans aren’t suppressing them!
After Lemon dismissed the Republican position and made his case to count the incorrectly-submitted ballots as “fishy,” Elie Honig, CNN legal analyst, noted that Lemon’s statement was “precisely what Fetterman’s team is making.”
Replied Lemon: “And it’s a very strong argument, by the way.”
Lemon also offered some unintentional humor, at times acknowledging:
“I know that [Republicans] believe it’s the law and good.”
Yes, that inconvenient law thingy!
Note to CNN boss Chris Licht: How is this building trust with Republicans?
CNN This Morning featured Don Lemon calling Republican arguments regarding a Pennsylvania ballot dispute “fishy” and John Fetterman’s argument being “very good.” CNN This Morning was sponsored by Hulu. Xfinity. Skechers.
Here’s the transcript.
CNN
CNN This Morning
11/8/22
6:23 am ET
ELIE HONIG – The fundamental legal dispute is this: Republicans on one side argue that the law of Pennsylvania or the Commonwealth in this instance, Pennsylvania, requires that the date be written on the ballot envelope’s outside. The date must be between the dates for mail-in balloting that were set back in August or September, mail or absentee, or November 8th. It is not a valid ballot and should be thrown out.
Democratic interests responded with a yes. However, this has nothing to with the person’s identity and it has nothing to with the person’s intent to vote. This requirement is in violation of the federal voting rights act.
. . .
LEMON: What does voter suppression mean? Just because there are a lot of voters does not mean there aren’t any suppressive efforts. Why wouldn’t you want every vote to count? I just don’t understand.
They say it’s the law. There are ways to verify that these people are real. One would expect that you would want as many people to vote as possible. This is strange and suspicious.
ELIE HONIG : This is exactly the argument Fetterman’s team makes.
LEMON: I think it’s an excellent argument.
