‘Can We Google It?’ Watch the Moment CNN’s Elle Reeve Confronts Election-Denying ‘Poll Watcher’ On Camera With Facts

CNN correspondent Elle Reeve confronted an election-denying “poll watcher” and got a look at training documents used to instruct the army of Trump supporters being deployed to the polls.

On Friday morning’s edition of CNN This Morning, Don Lemon and co-anchors Kaitlan Collins and Poppy Harlow were startled by Reeve’s report on the poll watchers, particularly the moment when she confronted fact-resistant trainee John Child with a little thing called “Google”:

REEVE (voice-over): Generally, it’s a good thing when more people get engaged in their local government, but some of this engagement is motivated by lies.

CHILD: Especially the mail-in ballots. That’s where the big issue was in 2020 because in Pennsylvania, there were 1.8 million mail-in ballots that went out; 2 1/2 million come back. There’s a question, maybe?

REEVE (on camera): Are you sure about that?

CHILD: Yes. Look it up — sure.

REEVE (on camera): Can we Google it?

CHILD: Google — I wouldn’t — yes, you —

REEVE (on camera): You —

CHILD: It’s everywhere.

REEVE (on camera): OK. So, the first result is from the A.P.

CHILD: There you go.

REEVE (on camera): A.P.’s assessment, false. In the weeks before the November 2020 election more than three million Pennsylvania voters requested vote by mail.

REEVE (voice-over): We met John at a poll watcher training put on by Delaware Country conservatives. The organizer wouldn’t let us in but John agreed to an interview, and he brought the training materials.

CHILD: My head was spinning at the end of it. I — it’s a rabbit hole.

REEVE (on camera): Well — so tell me about —

CHILD: I liked it better when I didn’t know any of this, honestly.

REEVE (on camera): Tell me about what was so mind-blowing in this.

CHILD: Well, the whole chain of custody thing of vitrons (PH) — that was astounding.

REEVE (voice-over): The documents go through many technical and procedural details of how votes are counted after polls close, and question whether each is an avenue for cheating. It casts an enormous cloud of suspicion over the vote without any proof.

STEVE BANNON, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: And we’re going to prove it to you on —

REEVE (voice-over): It’s part of a real nationwide movement led by MAGA influencers who circulate false information of election fraud in podcasts and in tours across the country.

DAVID CLEMENTS, FORMER PROFESSOR: And notice how mail-in votes will occasionally switch with in-person votes.

REEVE (voice-over): They’ve inspired citizens to get involved at the local level to hunt for proof of fraud and to prevent it from happening on Election Day. They have not found proof of fraudsters.

What election officials are worried about is that these efforts could intimidate voters.

CLEMENTS: You have to get into the ring. You cannot fight this on social media.

REEVE (on camera): I have watched, like, many of these different presentations — Steve Bannon, like this guy who calls himself the professor presenting this evidence. But none of that stuff adds up to the millions of votes between Trump and Biden.

CHILD: So, you’re not convinced and we’re a — we’re a bunch of —

REEVE (on camera): I’m not convinced.

CHILD: — crazy people then?

REEVE (on camera): I didn’t say you were crazy.

CHILD: Well, sure you are. It’s —

REEVE (on camera): I didn’t say you were crazy.

CHILD: No. We’re deluded. We’re misled.

REEVE (on camera): Maybe misled.

CHILD: I don’t see it that way, but —

REEVE (on camera): I know you don’t see that. I know you don’t see —

CHILD: But that’s OK.

REEVE (on camera): — it that way. But I guess one of the reasons why it’s important to talk to people like you is to see if there’s a place where there could be reconciliation.

CHILD: Yes. Go back to same-day voting and paper ballots.

Watch above via CNN This Morning.

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