Shooting Before The Looting: Republicans And Election Fraud

The day this article is published — 9/14/2021 — is the same day as the California recall election, where voters will decide if they will remove Governor Gavin Newsom from office. Considering Newsome won 61.9% of the popular vote in 2018, beating his opponent by almost three million votes, the odds of Newsom being recalled seem slim. Gary Davis — who won the 2002 Gubernatorial Election before being recalled the following year — only earned 47.3% of the popular vote and beat his closest opponent by less than four-hundred thousand votes.

The major candidate who is set to replace Newsom if he is recalled — which is highly unlikely — is Republican radio host Larry Elder. Elder has since been involved in a sexual harassment scandal, with his ex-fiancee saying he tried to make her get a tattoo which read “Larry’s Girl.” (Was I the only one reminded of the NXIVM sex cult when I first heard that story?)

I remember first seeing Elder in that Penn And Teller: Bullshit episode that argued second-hand cigarette smoke doesn’t cause cancer — the episode that was later proven to be completely wrong and which Penn And Teller themselves admit was wrong in light of more recent evidence. Mind you, the episode does make some good points about the science at the time — however, the fact that their conclusion later turned out to be…