In Iowa, it ended not with a bang, but a whimper.
On Wednesday, Democratic congressional candidate Rita Hart unexpectedly abandoned her bid to overturn the election that Republican Marianette Miller-Meeks won last fall by six votes.
She did so with complaints about a “toxic campaign of political disinformation.”
Iowa state election officials certified Miller-Meeks’ six-vote win last year following a recount. She took her seat in the House of Representatives in early January.
But Hart kept making noise about a ballot-counting screw-up. She maintained 22 ballots wee improperly counted, and if corrected, she would win by nine votes. But instead of going to court in Iowa to make her case, she protested directly to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats in Congress.
There, Hart found sympathetic ears, including Pelosi’s.
The Tampa Free Press reported last month that Pelosi, despite all the Democrats’ rhetoric about how former President Donald Trump and Republicans failed to respect the democratic process by denouncing the election as rigged or fraud-plagued, was open to investigating the election.
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More recently Pelosi claimed she had the “right,” as speaker, to not seat Miller-Meeks or anyone else she didn’t believe belonged in the House. But Pelosi added that she allowed her to take office in order for the process to play out.
The House Administration Committee began a probe into the vote. Then a handful of moderate Democrats suggested they were ready to move forward with Miller-Meeks in the House. The Associated Press reported Wednesday that at least seven Democrats had said publicly they would not support Harts claim, which was sufficient to ensure her defeat if the entire House voted on it.
On Twitter on Wednesday, the Democrat threw in the towel.
Hart said she was “saddened that some Iowans’ votes will not count through no fault of their own.
She then blamed the “toxic campaign of political disinformation” that attacked the “constitutional review” of the narrow election, which “has effectively silenced the voices of Iowans.”
“It is a stain on our democracy that the truth has not prevailed and my hope for the future is a return to decency and civility.”
If Hart really wants that, perhaps she should have been a graceful loser and then encouraged her fellow Democrats to not attack Republicans as traitors for doing what she did: question the results of an election.
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