Over the weekend, Donald Trump ally and conspiracy theorist extraordinaire Roger Stone posited on Sunday that it is likely that GOP Ohio Governor John Kasich will rig the voting machines in Ohio to ensure Hillary Clinton wins the state in November.
Stone huffed:
This race is going to be close and down to the wire. I expect that either she will remain very slightly ahead through most of the polling, largely because most of the public pollsters oversample Democrats. Or the lead will seesaw back and forth but always remain in range. That’s why I believe there’s a high probability that between voting illegal immigrants — voter fraud — and rigging the machines in states where they can do so — when I say “they,” the Clintons — or where Republican establishment allies of theirs will rig the machines. No, I’m sorry, I don’t trust John Kasich to conduct an honest [inaudible] in Ohio. I don’t. And there’s substantial evidence that Ohio was stolen from John Kerry for George Bush.
Some of you may remember in this last presidential election when Karl Rove was on Fox and he had a meltdown, insisting that the numbers on Ohio on the big screen had to be wrong — had to be wrong. “Romney’s going to carry Ohio, they have to be wrong.” Why was he so sure? Because he thought the machines were rigged. That’s why. Because he rigged them for George W. Bush. That’s why.
Kasich has openly refused to endorse Trump; the rancor between the two men was intensified when Trump allegedly threatened to create and fund super-PACs that would end Kasich’s career.
The willingness of Trump and his allies to deny polls showing him behind and to insist that if he loses it is because the election will be rigged has permeated the Trump camp for weeks. As far back as the beginning of August Trump puffed to The Washington Post, “If the election is rigged, I would not be surprised. The voter ID situation has turned out to be a very unfair development. We may have people vote 10 times.” The day prior, Trump told an Ohio rally that “the election is going to be rigged,” and appeared on Fox News Channel with Sean Hannity to warn GOP voters to start “watching closely” or the election would be “taken away from us” through fraud.
As far as Stone, who makes a living stoking conspiracy theories, this is just his second this week, after theorizing that Chelsea Clinton had four plastic surgeries to conceal that she wasn’t Bill Clinton’s daughter. Stone has posited that the Bush family attempted to kill Ronald Reagan; that Ted Cruz’s father was part of the JFK assassination; that the Clintons murdered JFK Jr.; and that there was a conspiracy behind the 9/11 attacks.