Unlike Republicans who make claims about election irregularities and possible fraud, Abrams’ allegations about how the 2018 election was “stolen” from her (to this date she still has not conceded she lost) have been treated as the gospel truth in most media/Democrat/Never Trump circles. To the media, Republicans who allege such things are anti-democratic and support “insurrectionists,” while Democrats who make such claims are treated as bold leaders speaking Truth to Power™ and should be considered shoo-ins as viable Senate contenders or vice-presidential possibilities.
But while the myth of Abrams’ supposed expertise and prowess has been pervasive for over two years now, in reality, Abrams’ skill at what she does has been vastly overrated, as I documented here after Democrats and the media credited her for voter registration efforts that her defenders say made the difference in the Georgia presidential race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
As further proof that her creds on these matters are majorly overblown, I present to you an interview Abrams did on Jake Tapper’s “State of the Union” program on CNN over the weekend where she discussed alleged GOP voter suppression efforts. In the process, she made a whopper of a claim about what the Constitution says about who has the power to regulate elections (bolded emphasis added):
TAPPER: The House just passed a sweeping voting reform bill. It’s about to run into the Senate filibuster. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn said it would be catastrophic if the filibuster was allowed to be used to block these efforts to ensure voting rights. What’s your message to Democratic senators such as Kyrsten Sinema or Senator Joe Manchin or even to President Biden, who all support voting rights, but have made clear that they’re not in favor of eliminating the filibuster, which will all be guarantee this bill dies?
ABRAMS: I don’t believe that it’s necessary to wholly eliminate the filibuster to accomplish the purposes of passing these bills. The Elections Clause in the Constitution guarantees that the Congress alone has the power to regulate — to regulate the time, manner and place of elections. That is a power that is sacrosanct. We are watching across this country as individual legislators try to use the big lie to restrict access to the right to vote.
Watch:
Umm… no. That is not correct, as others observed:
What makes this an especially embarrassing look on her part is the fact that this is like Elections 101 stuff. This is not any deep, intricate thing that a supposed “expert” might forget. It literally says in the Constitution that state legislatures have a very significant role to play in this process.
While Abrams made a complete fool of herself on live TV, Tapper didn’t do a bad job of making one of himself by not fact-checking her: