Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has been on a nearly weeklong Twitter meltdown about the possibility that attempts to make sure every vote is counted in Florida might result in Republicans losing that state's governor and United States Senate races.
Since Thursday, he has posted a whopping 68 tweets on the subject, as seen below.
More ominously, the Republican Party has also resorted to using the same mob tactics used by the GOP during the 2000 presidential election, when the difference between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore winning boiled down to the electoral votes of the Sunshine State. While Rubio may not be directly involved in stirring up those intimidation tactics, his attempts to delegitimize the election on Twitter is very much a part of the same approach.
"My very first US investigative report was published by Salon in 2000 about the theft of the vote in Florida, then still in progress," journalist Greg Palast told Salon by email. "2018 and the photos are nearly identical to 2000 — GOP bullies trying to stop the vote count (in 2000, a riot by GOP operatives in the Miami-Dade elections office successfully shut down the vote). In 2018, menacing crowds supporting the GOP are chanting 'Stop the Count!' the exact phrase the GOP chanted in 2000. And in 2018, Democratic demonstrators are chanting, 'Count all the votes! Count all the votes' - the exact same (failed) chant from 2000."
He added, "In 2000, Democrats were calling for all votes to be counted - no games, no disqualifying ballots for 'hanging chads' or other gimmicks. The Republicans were adamant, led by Governor Jeb Bush and his Secretary of State Katherine Harris: don’t count all votes. In the end a whopping 178,000 ballots were disqualified — and George W. Bush won Florida and the US presidency by just 537 votes."
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