Florida Democrat: Russians Have Infested Our Voting Systems! Election Officials: Nope.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), who is in for the fight of his life if he wants to be re-elected in November, apparently thinks the best way to hold on to his seat is to create a minor panic about the legitimacy of the upcoming midterms. In comments that bore little or no resemblance to reality this week, Nelson said that Russians had successfully hacked Florida voter registration rolls in some parts of the state.

In an interview with the Tampa Bay Times, Nelson, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said, “They have already penetrated certain counties in the state and they now have free rein to move about.”

But election officials in Florida say they have no idea what the Democrat is talking about.

Broward County Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes said Thursday: “We have had absolutely no information regarding that. We have not seen anything with our system that something strange is going on.”

Nelson did not tell the Tampa Bay Times which specific counties had been hacked, insisting that the information was classified. “The threat is real,” he said, “and elections officials at all levels need to address the vulnerabilities.”

In addition to Broward, election officials in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach also said they had no information that would corroborate Nelson’s wild claim.

Perhaps the federal government is simply sitting on this explosive information, teasing it out only to senators who want to hint about it in their local press? Because that makes a lot of sense.

In a statement, the Florida Department of State appeared to rebuke Nelson for stirring the pot with unfounded claims of Russian hacking.

“The department has received no information from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or the Florida Department of Law Enforcement that corroborates Sen. Nelson’s statement and we have no evidence to support these claims,” the department said. “If Sen. Nelson has specific information about threats to our elections, he should share it with election officials in Florida.”

But then, why would he do that when he can just tease it in the paper and have a ready-made excuse for why he’s going to lose in November? We’re sure that the “classified” information Nelson is talking about are intraparty memos in which the Democrats are planning to blame their vanishing blue wave on Russia, Russia, Russia. Before long, no Republican anywhere will be able to win a local election without his opponent pointing the finger at Vladimir Putin.

If this nonsense weren’t so disastrous for our country, it would almost be funny.