Predictions that former President Donald Trump will declare premature victory on Election Night spurred MSNBC's Joe Scarborough to blast Republican legislatures for creating conditions that could help him steal the election.
The former president attempted to remain in office in 2020 despite losing that election and has already been spreading baseless claims about fraud in this year's vote, and the "Mornig Joe" host said GOP legislators set up rules in several key states that could help Trump amplify his lies about a potential loss to Kamala Harris.
"Let's be clear," Scarborough said. "I said this in 2020 on the day before the election. I said, you'll see a red mirage because Republican legislatures in Pennsylvania, in Michigan and Wisconsin refuse to do what Florida does, which is count the early votes early so you know by 9:30 [or] 10:00 [p.m.] who the winner is. But they did it intentionally in 2020, they refused to fix it in 2024."
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Election workers in Wisconsin, for example, will start tabulating the results at individual polling places as soon as the polls close at 8 p.m., and those unofficial results should be posted by county clerks later on Election Night, but in counties that use a central count system, like Milwaukee County, that process might last until the following morning, and all the absentee ballot results will be posted at the same time.
"They did that for one reason, because they want Donald Trump to be able to lie if it looks like he is ahead," Scarborough said.
"They don't want you to see what Black people and Hispanic people in Wisconsin are doing. They don't want you to see what Milwaukee voters are doing, what Green Bay voters are doing. It is deliberate to allow the 'big lie' to get out of the gate. It's not going to work."
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