It’s been days since Election Day and we’re still waiting on the results from a number of places, meanwhile, Florida had everything counted in a few hours. But according to NewsNation’s Chris “Fredo” Cuomo Thursday night, Florida should not be the standard because of the hanging chad situation 22 years ago. He also suggested things would be better with an all-digital system like our hackable banking and fiat monetary systems.
Cuomo’s asinine comments came during the handoff from On Balance With Leland Vittert to his eponymous show. “Chris. It is still confounding to me. That after all that we've been through. In our parent’s era, you knew who won at the end of the night and we've gone backwards,” a frustrated Vittert lamented, to which Cuomo tried to argue fewer people were voting back then.
Vittert immediately pointed out that Florida had counted millions of ballots in just a few hours. Cuomo counted by clownishly trying to credit the GOP’s victory margin for the count rate (Click “expand”):
VITTERT: In Florida – Oh come on! In Florida, they get it done in three hours.
CUOMO: Well, now, this race where they had huge margins they got it gone in three hours.
[Crosstalk]
VITTERT: The margins don’t have anything to do with how many ballots you count.
CUOMO: The idea of holding out Florida – Well, sure it does.
VITTERT: No, it doesn’t.
The failed CNN host continued to argue that the margin matter “in terms of meeting procedures to double check, close counts, recounting, how you have the procedures.”
“So, you’re saying Florida’s sloppy because they have big margins?” Vittert wondered. Cuomo didn’t think they were sloppy (or “floppy” as he misspoke) but argued it was “a little silly” to elevate Florida for vote counting given the hanging chads and a dubious claim that the 2018 midterm was not on the up and up:
I do think that you've got to have a little bit of a memory here. Okay? As we saw from former President Trump today. The race where DeSantis won was not the cleanest race in the world. All right? We had the FBI down there and we had like monitors in every county because of problems. And this is the home of the hanging chad.
So, using Florida as an example of how it's done well, I think is a little silly. But we certainly could do better.
“You don’t think they’ve cleaned it up?” Vittert pressed. Cuomo responded by going full conspiracy theorist accusing an unnamed “they” of not wanting good elections. “But they don't want it to do better. They don't want to be better. We have early voting now, but they don't want more access, want more efficiency,” he ranted.
Casting aspersions on federalism and allowing each state to decide what’s right for them, Cuomo decried states having different rules and conspiratorially claimed: “the overarching cultural goal is to keep the numbers down.” “How else would you explain these inefficiencies? How else?” he demanded to know.
His solution was to move the voting process “online” like our banking and monetary systems. “You pay all your bills online, but we won't touch any type of real modification of this process,” he bloviated. “All your money, you’ve never seen it. You don't have a coffee can at your house. It's all online. It's all digital. All our all our money. We do that way. But not voting.”
Cuomo was conveniently omitting how vulnerable and hackable an entirely online process is. Experts credit America’s more archaic system of being a defense against foreign hacking efforts. And while he praised a digital monetary system, many economists warn that fiat currency (not backed up in tangible assets) of being a cause of runaway inflation.
Ignoring Florida’s ability to rapidly count their votes, Cuomo falsely suggested “We won't have any efficiencies put into voting. We still got paper ballots of people turning switches in 2022. You think that's the best we can do? Come on.”
The debate was inconclusive as they needed to end the conversation and allow Cuomo’s show to continue.
Chris Cuomo’s smears of Florida were made possible because of lucrative sponsorships from Fidelity and AARP. Their contact information is linked.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
NewsNation’s On Balance
November 10, 2022
7:59:21 p.m. EasternLELAND VITTERT: Chris. It is still confounding to me. That after all that we've been through. In our parent’s era you knew who won at the end of the night and we've gone backwards.
CHRIS CUOMO: A lot fewer people voted. A lot fewer people were enfranchised.
VITTERT: In Florida – Oh come on! In Florida, they get it done in three hours.
CUOMO: Well, now, this race where they had huge margins they got it gone in three hours.
[Crosstalk]
VITTERT: The margins don’t have anything to do with how many ballots you count.
CUOMO: The idea of holding out Florida – Well, sure it does.
VITTERT: No, it doesn’t.
CUOMO: Sure, it does. Not in terms of the count rate –
VITTERT: Right.
CUOMO: -- but in terms of meeting procedures to double check, close counts, recounting, how you have the procedures.
VITTERT: So, you’re saying Florida’s sloppy because they have big margins?
CUOMO: No, I don't think Florida's floppy, but I do think that you've got to have a little bit of a memory here. Okay? As we saw from former President Trump today. The race where DeSantis won was not the cleanest race in the world. All right? We had the FBI down there and we had like monitors in every county because of problems. And this is the home of the hanging chad.
So, using Florida as an example of how it's done well, I think is a little silly. But we certainly could do better.
VITTERT: You don’t think they’ve cleaned it up?
CUOMO: But they don't want it to do better. They don't want to be better. We have early voting now, but they don't want more access, want more efficiency.
VITTERT: Oh, come on! There’s huge early voting in Florida.
CUOMO: There is early voting in Florida. I’m saying something else. saying they have early voting now. But the procedures are different everywhere. The timing is different everywhere. Florida doesn't allow election day drop-off, which they do in Arizona. They got 290,000 ballots dropped off on Election Day. And the signature-check all of those.
VITTERT: It’s a lot.
CUOMO: So, what are the rules? Why aren’t they uniform? Why isn't the focus on enfranchising as many people doing it as efficiently as we do with our money? Right?
You pay all your bills online, but we won't touch any type real modification of this process. Why? Because the overarching cultural goal is to keep the numbers down. That’s why
VITTERT: Oh, come on!
CUOMO: So, we can do – How else would you explain these inefficiencies? How else?
VITTERT: We have the Powerball lottery --
CUOMO: All your money, you’ve never seen it. You don't have a coffee can at your house. It's all online. It's all digital. All our all our money. We do that way. But not voting. We won't have any efficiencies put into voting. We still got paper ballots of people turning switches in 2022. You think that's the best we can do? Come on.
VITTERT: You've got you've got a show. We’ll debate this tomorrow. I’ll come with more data tomorrow.
CUOMO: Whenever you want. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Leland, always a pleasure. Everybody else. Let's get after it.
