CNN Host: Holding Elections Threatens Our Democracy

A CNN host is concerned that letting Americans vote for a state-wide office threatens democracy, and is flogging Republicans for suggesting that the office be elected after it spent years ignoring George Soros’ attempt to control it.

Filling in Tuesday night for the recently fired Chris Cuomo on the abruptly renamed “CNN Prime Time,” guest host Michael Smerconish twice warned that Trump voters in his home state have launched a dark conspiracy to overturn elections by having a statewide officeholder elected by the people instead of appointed by the governor.

And despite his concern over Republicans running for the office of secretary of state, which oversees election laws in each respective state, CNN apparently never mentioned the most concerted effort to capture this office: George Soros’ “Secretary of State Project.”

Michael Smerconish brought the subject up during the now-abbreviated handoff with Don Lemon at 10 p.m., after Lemon said he questioned the integrity of people who support election integrity. “I’m not sure if that really matters if they want to believe [in voter fraud] or they actually do believe it,” he said.

“Well, they are taking action on it,” replied Smerconish. He said the fact that a sizable percentage of Republicans’ constituents harbor doubts about the 2020 election “gives them the power to go in a state like Pennsylvania and say, ‘You know that secretary of state position? Let’s make it an elected gig, instead of an appointed job.’”

Smerconish did not explain how holding more elections would thwart the democratic process. He had raised the topic earlier in the show with David Leonhardt of The New York Times. Leonhardt warned that Republicans are seeking ways “to make it easier … for them to overturn an election result after it happens.”

“For example, my home state, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, there’s a move afoot to make the Secretary of State, an elected official,” said Smerconish. “That’s what you’re talking about?”

“Yes,“ replied Leonhardt, although he immediately walked his statement back, noting “the mere fact of making the Secretary of State an elected position is not in itself threatening to democracy. There are many places where it is an elected position.”

Voters democratically elect the secretary of state in 35 states, including California, Massachusetts, and Vermont.

Leonhardt also said that limiting mail-in balloting is not a “radical” stance, and that assuring ballot integrity by passing voter ID laws is “a legitimate thing for the government to do.”

Despite the CNN host’s concern over the partisan leanings of state election officials, the network seems to have dedicated no coverage whatever to George Soros’ campaign to elect Democrat-friendly candidates as secretary of state in swing states.

After the narrow 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, a coalition of left-wing donors known as the Democracy Alliance, including George Soros, began a 527 group called the Secretary of State Project (or SoS Project) aimed at electing progressives as the top election officials in states the Republican candidate won by less than 120,000 votes.

“Democrats have built an administrative firewall designed to protect their electoral interests in five of the most important battleground states,” reported Politico in a story about the SoS Project just before the 2008 election. “The bulwark consists of control of secretary of state offices in five key states — Iowa, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico and Ohio.”

“With a Democrat now in charge of the offices, which oversee and administer their state’s elections, the party is better positioned than in the previous elections to advance traditional Democratic interests … rather than Republican priorities such as stamping out voter fraud,” Politico noted.

Despite the group’s financial might and stated intention of controlling election law in swing states for partisan advantage, CNN appears not to have covered the Secretary of State Project a single time.

A comprehensive search of the network’s transcripts, and a Google search of its website, for stories on the topic yielded no results.

The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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