Michael Smerconish of CNN, who is billed as a conservative commentator, said that he was wrong to dismiss the idea of illegal immigrants voting during a recent conversation with journalist Mark Halperin.
Their discussion was focused on the discovery of thousands of illegal immigrants who were registered to vote in the state of New Jersey.
It’s amazing that the New Jersey story broke just a few days after Trump gave a national address about election integrity in which he alleged that this exact thing is happening in multiple states.
FOX News reports:
CNN and SiriusXM host Michael Smerconish acknowledged Wednesday on “The Michael Smerconish Program” that he could no longer claim noncitizen voting never occurred after New Jersey disclosed that a software error improperly registered roughly 6,600 noncitizens and fewer than 400 cast ballots.
“I can’t say that any longer,” Smerconish said. “I don’t know how often it does happen, but I can’t say any longer, ‘This never happens.’”
Smerconish said he had previously reached the opposite conclusion after discussing a January New York Times analysis titled “Initial Review Finds No Widespread Illegal Voting by Migrants, Puncturing a Trump Claim.” The analysis found no evidence of widespread fraud but noted that noncitizens sometimes appeared on voter rolls…
Political analyst Mark Halperin agreed that the disclosure undercut categorical claims about noncitizen voting while cautioning that more information was needed before conclusions could be reached about its scale.
“Based on what we now know, the thing that Democrats said doesn’t happen happened,” Halperin said. “And it’s not right to take the word of the Democratic governor of New Jersey about what actually happened.”
Hellbound and Down 