MAGA Activist Suggests Fraud After His Guy Loses Southern Baptist Election

This is kind of amusing and gets to the heart of how Republican delusions have infiltrated the largest Protestant denomination in the country.

Last week, the Southern Baptist Convention elected Pastor Ed Litton as their new president. He won a tight runoff election against the more conservative Pastor Mike Stone by only 556 votes out of approximately 13,000 cast. That represented 52% of the votes.

While plenty of Trump-y conservatives were frustrated with that outcome, what’s not in doubt is the legitimacy of that vote. A group of “tellers” tasked with counting the votes were previously announced and there were no complaints about fraud from any of the losing candidates.

But that didn’t stop Michael O’Fallon, a supporter of Donald Trump and the head of the Christian Nationalist group Sovereign Nations, from suggesting there must have been election fraud at play.

Again, we know who was in charge of the counting process and there’s no evidence of any mishandling of the ballots. Even Stone, the conservative who lost, issued a public congratulations to Litton.

In other words, O’Fallon doesn’t have any reason to doubt the results. But because his preferred candidate lost, he’s suggesting it was rigged. (Of course he does this under the guise of just asking questions.)

William Thornton, a Southern Baptist blogger, responded to the accusation by explaining the entire process and pointing out how by-the-book everything was:

… We may be totally confident of the outcome. There are always opportunities for fraudulent ballots to be cast but there has never been proof of widespread improper balloting. There was virtually no opportunity for any individual to manipulate the outcome.

…

Some loud voices complain about election fraud on the Litton/Stone vote. Stone hasn’t complained and no one has proof. Fake news is with us always it seems.

Even online, though, O’Fallon’s baseless allegation was met with eye-rolls from those who see this as yet more evidence that the conservative movement — and the sore losers who are part of it — can’t handle anyone else winning an election, period. They have to cast doubt on the entire process no matter the utter lack of evidence.

Maybe next time, conservatives should work on choosing a better candidate instead of whining after another loss.

(Featured image via Shutterstock. Thanks to Chris for the link)