By ,
Published January 14, 2015
This is a partial transcript from "Hannity & Colmes," Oct. 19, 2004, that has been edited for clarity.
Watch "Hannity & Colmes" weeknights at 9 p.m. ET!
ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: All over the country, Republicans and Democrats accusing each other of voter fraud. Are we headed for disaster on Election Day? Joining us now, RNC adviser Peggy Noonan.
Peggy, nice too see you once again.
PEGGY NOONAN, FORMER REAGAN SPEECHWRITER: Good to see you, Alan.
COLMES: Look what's happened here. It took a federal judge in Toledo to order the state's Republican secretary of state to count so-called provisional ballots from the wrong precincts to make sure those ballots were counted.
In Ohio also, ACT registered lots of new voters and they wanted to put challengers, Republicans do, in there — Democrats going to put lawyers in there to make sure that the challengers doesn't hurt people's chances to vote.
NOONAN: Well, we've got a lot going on. We got a Democratic Party playbook that says if nobody stops you from voting, mess things up by saying they're stopping anyway. We've got a guy who is being paid apparently with crack to make false registrations in Ohio for people like Dick Tracy (search) and Mary Poppins (search ).
We have had complaints or accusations of voter fraud in — I wrote it down this afternoon — Ohio, Missouri, Nevada, Colorado, Michigan, New Mexico, Florida, and that's not the entire list.
COLMES: Do you have any doubt that there is voter fraud that takes place? And why do Democrats have to fight against Republicans who, for the most part, do things — not to suppress exactly but they would like to lessen the turnout. We saw that happen in Ohio. We saw this happen in a number of states. And, you know, Democrats are always the ones fighting to get more people to vote.
NOONAN: That's such an interesting read on reality, but I believe it is completely and wholly incorrect.
COLMES: It's not correct, the Democrats are the ones fighting to get more people to the poll?
NOONAN: The big problem is the Democratic Party has had a very long tradition of playing with registration and playing with stuffing ballots, and you can go back to Mayor Daley and you can go back to landslide Lyndon Johnson, but the problem now is that you've paid a lot of people to go on the streets, the Democratic Party, and register people, get money for each registration. They're having fun. They're making it up. It is becoming very serious.
You and I were talking just a little while ago about how 1996 may be remembered by us at the last time the American people could watch the news on election night, find out who won, go to sleep and know in the morning who the next president is.
So this is terrible. I think it is — I must tell you from the data I get, it is largely a Democratic phenomenon.
COLMES: OK, why is it this — why is this, Peggy? It seems like the Democrats are the ones fighting to get more people to register, more people to vote and that seems to favor the Democratic Party.
NOONAN: I understand.
COLMES: When it's the converse, it favors the Republican Party. Why is that?
NOONAN: I understand. The Democrats, unfortunately, have a propensity for trying to get more people who are dead to vote, more people who do not exist to vote...
COLMES: More actual, live people voting.
NOONAN: ... more people than Mary Poppins and Susan Sarandon III, and Dick Tracy and Madonna.
COLMES: Do you agree that more people voting favors Democrats?
NOONAN: I believe that — I will tell you very frankly. I think the voter fraud problem in America is largely a Democratic Party-driven problem. And I would just adore it if your Mr. Kerry would come forward and say something very important in a speech the next few days.
I would love it if he would come forward and say, "I would rather lose than win through fraud and ballot-stuffing and registrations that are wholly illegal and incorrect. I would love it if he would make a big speech in that way and call off his people.
Second thing is...
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: Hey, Peggy.
NOONAN: Hello, Sean. Is this your show, too?
HANNITY: It's good to see you.
NOONAN: Sorry, I'm ragging along here.
HANNITY: No, you're doing great, as always. It's always good to see you.
It's something — this has been a theme we have been discussing now for the better part of a week. You know, there's an effort, a concerted effort, to lie and scare young people and their parents into voting for John Kerry, to scare old people into voting for John Kerry, to anger the African-American community and give them a false conspiracy that Republicans want to suppress votes.
There's no evidence, no proof of any of this. This is outright mean- spirited propaganda and manipulation at its heart and soul.
NOONAN: Yes, it is. And nobody approves of it who is a decent person.
However, in a way you can consider that politics. That's how politics gets. It gets mean and nasty at the end. What I am most worried about is that vote fraud in America, Sean — did you know it is a class-5 felony? That means — it used to be a misdemeanor. It used to be nothing.
You voted illegally, they found out, they went, "Don't do that again," and you went and did it again. It ought to be a class-1 felony. People ought to go to jail for doing this.
Here is the reason.
HANNITY: Let me show you something.
NOONAN: Vote fraud is actually treasonous. Democracy is fragile.You can't mess with it like this.
HANNITY: This says Kerry-Edwards. It says, "Colorado Election Day Manual, detailed guide for voting in Colorado." Declare intimidation, even if none exists.
NOONAN: Yes, I know. That's a terrible thing.
It's also a terrible thing — how many lawyers have the Democrats got marching down through Georgia at this point from the north? I think it's 1,500. They're going to try to lawyer this thing to death. And it's not in the spirit of democracy and it's not right.
HANNITY: Yes. Well, the question is, are they going to be successful using these tactics and techniques?
I want to put on the screen, this is now — you know these 527 groups, and this one particular group, ACT, has put out this ad. And I think this is probably the worst of the bunch here.
As you can see on the screen, it has a picture of an African-American being watered down with a fire hose by a fireman, reminiscent of civil rights struggle days, and it says underneath it, "This is what they used to do to keep us from voting."
And then on the right side, upper right-hand corner, "This is how Republicans keep African-Americans from voting now." And these are the old Clinton people involved in this, as I understand it.
NOONAN: Yes, it's a hyperbole, it's manipulation, it's kind of shameful, but I still say it's not as bad as illegally registering and illegally voting. I've got to tell you. That's the one — it sticks in my crop. It is treasonous.
COLMES: Peggy, I have a hunch I'll be canceling out your vote, or your canceling out mine perhaps, on Election Day. Thank you very much for being here, as always.
NOONAN: Thank you, buddy.
Content and Programming Copyright 2004 Fox News Network, L.L.C. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Transcription Copyright 2004 eMediaMillWorks, Inc. (f/k/a Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.), which takes sole responsibility for the accuracy of the transcription. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No license is granted to the user of this material except for the user's personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be printed, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any fashion that may infringe upon Fox News Network, L.L.C.'s and eMediaMillWorks, Inc.'s copyrights or other proprietary rights or interests in the material. This is not a legal transcript for purposes of litigation.
https://www.foxnews.com/story/are-we-headed-for-disaster-on-election-day