Chris Wallace once again took up the mantle of the Biden-Harris regime’s white knight on Fox News Sunday, in a futile effort to bash Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas GOP for their efforts to secure elections. In short: Abbott destroyed him. Wallace trotted out the continual refrain that Republicans are attempting to “suppress voting by people of color” which the redoubtable Governor meticulously wrecked.
No one in the mainstream or even in most other smaller outlets are presenting this interview accurately framed or in full, so here at The GOP Times: we will reveal it for the truly absolute dunk-fest it really was. You can watch the lousy framing from Poli-Alert, and roll your eyes at Newsweek’s description and then read the painstakingly accurate transcript and decide for yourself. Wallace didn’t “Nail Abbott” or “Grill” the Governor. No, Wallace took a swing and got himself rhetorically pummeled by an objectively superior opponent.
Chris Wallace to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott:
“The question is why make it harder for some Texans to vote unless the point is suppress voting by people of color?" pic.twitter.com/tFXnYcHddm
— Poli Alert (@polialertcom) July 11, 2021
The Failed Wallace Attack on Governor Abbot — In Full with Annotation
Chris: “Well, governor, let me ask you though about two other things that the G.O.P. Bills would do. I want to put them up on the screen. They would ban 24-hour voting and they would ban drive-through voting. There was no allegation of any fraud in either of those. Harris County, the Houston area, employed both of those and more than half of the voters who showed up were people of color.
So, you say you want to make it easier to vote. That’s going to make it harder to vote and the question is why make it harder for some Texans to vote unless the point is to suppress voting by people of color?”
First, let’s break down this framing because it’s a ridiculously dishonest straw-man argument:
Wallace sets up two policies: 24 hour voting and Drive-In voting as having “no allegation of fraud”. Here’s the trick: nobody said they did, not the Texas GOP or Abbott. They said they could and that Harris County’s actions were illegal. He’s built the straw man.
That’s going to make it harder to vote.” –Based on what? Wallace provides no studies or evidence of this point. Sure it SEEMS like these two options could make it easier to vote, but did they actually? We don’t know. And its’ going to make it harder to vote than an illegal process that Harris County did that should’ve never been allowed in the first place? The Strawman is stood up now.
Now Wallace challenges Abbott to defend an argument that’s impossible to defend, which he created for him. “Why make it harder for some Texans to vote unless the point is to suppress voting by people of color?”
Translation:
- Here is an argument that you aren’t trying to make that isn’t based on any facts supported by an otherwise unrelated fact with no evidence linking them: “They would ban 24-hour voting and they would ban drive-through voting. There was no allegation of any fraud in either of those. Harris County, the Houston area, employed both of those and more than half of the voters who showed up were people of color.”
- You say you’re doing good, but I disagree. Why are you racist? “That’s going to make it harder to vote and the question is why make it harder for some Texans to vote unless the point is to suppress voting by people of color?”
Heres’ the fast and dirty answer for each point and then we can get to how Governor Abbott expertly and in detailed fashion addressed each point.
- This was only done in Harris County. Why are you acting like these changes will impact everyone in Texas.
- What Harris County did was UnConstitutional and therefore illegal.
- 24 Hour voting is logistically difficult and expensive (if not impossible) for smaller counties to carry out legally with all required scrutiny.
- Drive-In voting blows away two core concepts in American elections:
- The Secret Ballot
- Prohibition on Electioneering, meaning that no signs, tee shirts, campaign workers or anything else that could sway a voters decision are allowed within a certain distance of the polls. Poll workers cannot enforce this in a drive-thru line.
Here’s Governor Abbott’s full answer, stick around for the Coup De Grace at the end, it’s amazing.
Governor Abbott: So you mentioned a couple of things that need to be responded to. One, you mentioned how Harris County did this and it was Harris County ALONE. And for your viewers, Harris county is where Houston, Texas, is located. Let’s go back to Article One, Section Four of the United States Constitution where it says in there that it is the states, not counties that have the authority to regulate elections and despite that constitutional mandate: This past election: Harris County, A COUNTY, tried to create its own election system that had never been used in the state of Texas. It was not used in the other parts of the State of Texas…
Chris Wallace: But Governor?… But why not let it go on? Governor, just the question is if 24-hour voting worked, why not continue it? (Wallace offers no evidence or sources that state it worked, didn’t work or anything else. Just an undefended opinion.)
Governor Abbott: Well first: I’m going to answer questions specifically, but you need to go back to elections before now because the same allegations were made when Texas passed a voter i.d. Law and everyone said the exact same thing, ‘this is going to disenfranchise people of color’, ‘it will reduce voting’ and the fact of the matter is: After we passed voter i.d., we increasingly saw every election cycle, more people go vote, it did not make it harder to go vote, it was easier to go vote. And the same thing applies here.
And that is: with 24-hour voting, one thing that we want to make sure that we have is integrity in the ballot box system. And we need to have poll watchers and monitors and candidly, it’s hard even for a county to get people to be watching the polls 24 hours a day. We are providing more hours per day for voting to make sure that anybody of any type of background, any type of working situation, IS going to have the opportunity to go vote.
With regard to the drive-through voting. Listen, this violates the fundamentals of the way voting and integrity has always been achieved and that is the sanctity of the ballot box.
If you do drive-through voting are you going to have people in the car with you and it could be somebody from your employer or somebody else who may have some coercive effect on the way you may cast a ballot which is contrary to you going to the ballot box alone and no one there watching over your shoulder. So the way you vote, only you will know what that vote will be and to allow other people to pile into a car with you, it will alter that.
In addition to it would violate state law because in state law we have prohibitions on electioneering close to where people have their votes. If you’re doing drive-through voting this going to be electioneering, who could be on the bumper sticker in the car right in front of you!
We do still, however, Chris, provide what’s called curbside voting for those who qualify for curbside voting, that continues to be in place.
The bottom line Chris, is Harris County, under the constitution, is not allowed to come up with their own rules. What Texas is doing, by adding more hours, we’re making it easier people to go vote
— One last point, Chris, and that is if you look at the hours of voting that Texas provides, it is far more hours of voting then exists in the state where our current president voted in where they had exactly ZERO hours of early voting.
It’s far easier to vote in the State of Texas, than it is in Deleware and yet nobody is claiming that there is some kind of voter suppression taking place in Deleware.
At which point Wallace IMMEDIATELY changed the subject, you can easily tell from the look in his eyes that this just blew up in his face and he knows it. Thanks for playing Chris. You lose.
