On Election Night in 2014, there was a frightful slip made by Bob Beckel in his team election night commentary on the Fox News Channel. After mentioning that 40% of Fairfax County, Virginia had not reported yet (even though it is a high-income county advanced enough to be able to report quickly), he said "I used to work [Fairfax] County, and we always held back votes." I'm not making this up, of course; you can see it yourself at your convenience on Youtube -- .
I don't know what will come of this, but based on the aghast expressions on the faces of his colleagues on air, it won't rest there -- and it shouldn't. Beckel's career is well-documented in Wikipedia; he has been a Democratic political operative and consultant for many years, recently fired as a commentator on Fox after some inappropriate treatment of staff there. It is perfectly reasonable to assume he was simply stating facts from his past; it's just that saying it on air raises many questions.
First ... who is "we" that did this vote-holding? What does "I worked Fairfax County" mean? In what capacity was a political operative placed such that he was in a position to "hold back votes"? For that matter, what does "hold back votes" mean?
I'm very scared. Since the polls are closed at 7:00pm, there is nothing that can be done thereafter to change the results legally. At that point, all of the votes are cast and the counting and compiling has begun. So what, exactly, is in either party's interest to slow down the reporting process? Slowing it down can't influence the voting itself; it can only influence the part that is ongoing, i.e., the counting of votes.
I'm not the brightest light on the Christmas tree, but it seems pretty easy to infer that Beckel was talking about delaying the reporting to give time to create a favorable count. In other words, someone with access to the certification of ballots was in a position either to under-report, over-report or worst of all, create fraudulent ballots or ballot reports, to get the result needed based on the reporting of other counties. They needed time to see just how many votes were needed, and time to "create" them (or destroy them).
If you've got a better answer, let me know. But starting tomorrow morning, the FBI should be at Bob Beckel's doorstep asking what he meant, what he did and how he did it. Because right now, no matter what the answers are, every resident of Fairfax County, Virginia ought to be boiling at the possibility that their voting results are being manipulated by party hacks, and the sanctity of the ballot box has been compromised.
Since the statement was made on national television, the process of elections in this county has been declared corrupt until shown to be honest, and as a Fairfax County resident myself, I am livid.
I will not rest until the Fairfax County Election Board, the Commonwealth's Attorney and the U.S. Justice Department demonstrate to the citizens of the County that there has not been the type of voting and election fraud that Mr. Beckel's statements suggest has been rampant.
To the next Democrat who claims that the voter ID proponents are just bigots, and there's no real fraud going on, I will ask that they take a quick look at that clip.
Bob Beckel, you have some 'splainin' to do, and it better be to the authorities as well as the public.
For the record, I followed up in detail with the county's Election Board, they did do some form of an investigation and reported back to me that they had no idea what Beckel was talking about. So either the County is lying or Beckel was puffing himself up beyond reason. Neither is attractive.
Copyright 2017, 2014 by Robert Sutton
