Florida investigators debunk Trump’s conspiracy theory of voter ‘fraud’ to ‘falsify a victory’: report

Immediately after the 2018 midterm elections, amid chaos and confusion over the results in Florida, President Donald Trump repeatedly claimed on Twitter that Democrats were engaging in some sort of illegal election scheme. He said that he was sending lawyers "to expose the FRAUD!" and that votes were being "found" for Democrats by Broward County officials to "falsify a victory." Then-Gov. Rick Scott, who was running in the Senate election, agreed and called for an investigation into what Trump called a "big corruption scandal."

After a year and a half of investigation, according to Politico, investigators in Florida have conclusively put the president's conspiracy theories to bed.

"Neither Trump’s unnamed 'lawyers' nor the Florida Department of Law Enforcement found evidence of a 'big corruption scandal,'" reported Marc Caputo. "The state took more than 17 months to wrap up its investigation Wednesday, and found none of the wrongdoing alleged by Trump and Scott."

The election in Broward County was plagued by mismanagement that ended the career of county supervisor Brenda Snipes, but investigators found zero evidence of fraudulent voting. Late breaking ballots were disproportionately Democratic, but, as University of Florida political science professor Michael McDonald noted, that is not unusual — this pattern occurs in many states and is known as the "blue shift."

"Trump’s corruption conspiracy in Florida collapsed as he sought to discredit vote-by-mail efforts in two other battleground states, Michigan and Nevada, with incendiary and false rhetoric," continued the report. "As Trump tweeted falsities about vote-by-mail in those states, the Florida GOP sent a fundraising email urging donors to 'Stop Voter Fraud.'"

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