Scott Jennings Confronts CNN’s Abby Phillip Over Her Voter Fraud ‘Tolerance’ in Heated Panel Clash: ‘Convenient Deflection!’

Conservative CNN pundit Scott Jennings clashed Tuesday with NewsNight host Abby Phillip after demanding to know her “tolerance” bar for voter fraud during a heated panel debate over New Jersey’s mistaken registration of thousands of noncitizens to vote.

The exchange came after New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill’s (D) announcement that a software error at the state’s Motor Vehicle Commission had mistakenly placed roughly 6,600 noncitizens on the voter rolls. State officials said fewer than 400 ultimately cast ballots before the registrations were canceled, and the state has moved to replace the software vendor responsible for the mistake.

Opening the discussion, Phillip noted the White House had quickly cited the incident to bolster support for President Donald Trump’s “voter ID bill”, reading a statement that said: “Democrat glitch registers thousands of noncitizens to vote. Another reason to pass the SAVE America Act.”

She added that while the error was significant, “it also doesn’t demonstrate that there’s widespread voter fraud in New Jersey or anywhere.”

That prompted Manhattan Institute Vice President of External Affairs Jesse Arm to push back, arguing, “6,600 noncitizens made it onto the voter rolls. That, to me, is pretty widespread voter fraud.”

Phillip repeatedly challenged that characterization, pointing to the scale of New Jersey’s electorate and noting the registrations represented “0.006% of registered voters in the state.” She also argued that even if fewer than 400 ballots had been cast for Sherrill, they would account for “about 1/100 of a percent of all the votes cast.”

As Phillip repeatedly pressed Arm on how he could call that “widespread,” but he held his line: “6600 noncitizens made it onto the voter rolls. That’s pretty bad, I think.”

Jennings then entered the exchange by turning Phillip’s questioning back on her.

“What’s your tolerance for this?” he asked.

Phillip replied, “This is not about tolerance, this is about widespread, or is it something that is relatively rare.”

Jennings answered, “You’re pounding him over the word widespread. I just would ask you, what is your tolerance for any fraud at all?”

After Phillip again asked whether the problem was widespread, Jennings responded, “Absolutely, over 6,000 people.”

“What is your bar?” the host snapped.

“My bar is I want no tolerance,” Jennings fired back. “I have zero tolerance. By the way, this isn’t the only place this is happening.

Phillip then shifted to broader election administration, questioning why Jennings was for failing to devote the “same energy” in protesting eligible American voters being wrongly removed from voter rolls, referencing a federal judge’s recent criticism of an administration-backed verification system.

“I do have energy, as you know. I’ve come out here in a long argued that every time we don’t clean up the voter rolls, that every time a non-citizen makes it onto the voter rolls, it invalidates some legal person,” he said.

He continued: “I don’t have any tolerance for that either. An American citizen should be allowed. But American citizens are invalidated when illegal aliens are glitched onto the system.”

Phillip pressed on: “Why are you OK then with the administration using a system that a federal judge recently found was actively removing U.S. citizens from the voter rolls based on inaccurate information? Why are you comfortable with that system being used to check the voter rolls?”

“This is a convenient deflection for you,” he quipped. “This is the worst possible story that could happen for Democrats right now. Regarding the debate over the SAVE Act – 6,600 illegal aliens in New Jersey that you know about!”

Watch above via CNN.

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