Republicans mocked for sudden silence on election fraud after Virginia win

Republicans have been mocked for their sudden silence on election fraud after winning the Virginia governor’s race.

Private equity executive Glenn Younkin beat out Democrat Terry McAuliffe, a former governor of the state, in a race many expected Mr McAuliffe to win.

The result is seen as cause for concern among Democrats as the party in power often lose their congressional majorities in the first midterm following a presidential victory.

The hosts of Morning Joe on MSNBC sarcastically wondered why Republicans appeared to trust the results in the governor’s race and special elections that they won, when many falsely claimed that the system was riddled with corruption just a year ago when former President Donald Trump lost reelection to President Joe Biden.

“It’s interesting, I mean, really weird actually – I don’t get it,” host Mika Brzezinski said. “After hearing from Republicans about widespread voter fraud and this sort of crisis of rigged elections, do you remember all that? Oh my gosh, our country was braced for, you know, for horrible futures because of this, but apparently [Democrats] forgot how to play dirty in Tuesday’s elections. We’ll look at real reasons why Republicans were silent on the issues of election fraud – just nothing about it, Willie.”

“Eerie silence,” co-host Wille Geist said, “the last couple of days from people so sincerely concerned about election integrity.”

The former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, who was fired by Mr Trump for standing up to the big lie, posted a sarcastic tweet about the lack of fraud claims following the Republican win in the Virginia governor’s race.

Chris Krebs was forced out after the agency released a statement following the 2020 contest stating that it was the most secure election in American history.

“Good news everyone! Apparently, we secured all the elections in the last year, because I’m not seeing a lot of claims of fraud or stolen elections after yesterday. Congrats to all the election security peeps out there for all your hard work!” Mr Krebs tweeted on Wednesday.

Three Republicans who won seats in Virginia’s state legislature on Tuesday attended Mr Trump’s stop the steal rally on 6 January before a pro-Trump mob laid siege to the Capitol in a failed attempt to stop Congress from certifying Mr Biden election victory. None have been charged with a crime in connection to the event and none of them have been accused of entering the Capitol amidst the melee.

Twitter users were quick to point out that Republicans only allege fraud when they lose.

“Win, we win. Lose, we claim voter fraud ain’t exactly democracy,” journalist Dan Rather tweeted.

“Hmmmm ... no cry of voter fraud out of the GOP as long as they win,” reporter Brian Karem wrote.

University of College London Global Politics Professor Brian Klaas noted: “Plenty of food for thought for Democrats from Virginia, but don’t lose sight of this: the GOP won’t question the results in Virginia only because the Republican won. They would’ve cried fraud if Youngkin had lost. Their authoritarianism is the central story of modern US politics.”

The former Director of the Office of Government Ethics, Walter Schaub, tweeted: “You know what won’t happen? People aren’t going to cry and scream ‘rigged’ and ‘fraud’ like Trump has been doing for an entire year. You know what will happen? Trump and the Youngkin supporters who’ve been claiming this election was rigged for weeks will magically think it fair.”