Rush Limbaugh spread a conspiracy theory about the Florida midterm recounts alleging that if politicians want to count all votes, it's to smear Republicans as evildoers supporting voter suppression.

All morning on Fox and Friends, the three Trump surrogates were complaining about the voter count situation in Florida, attacking Sen. Bill Nelson for wanting all the votes counted.

In the second hour they played a video compilation of Rush Limbaugh promoting more Florida election nonsense and passed their whiny complaints on to him.

Limbaugh, "Count every vote is a dog whistle for we need to find more votes, not votes that have been cast."

How can you find votes if they haven't been cast?

Limbaugh: The effort here is to look like Rick Scott and DeSantis and the Republicans are trying to not count ballots. That's the purpose of this. Count every vote is not really a requirement. It is meant for the media to use that as a psychological message to the great unwashed that somebody is trying to not count every vote. And, of course, who is standing for it and calling for it? Why our good friends the Democrats, when in fact, it's all kaka. Nothing more than a trick to think dastardly evil Republicans are not counting every vote."

Well, that's usually the case since part of the Republican playbook for decades has been voter suppression.

Counting all the votes isn't a requirement? Really? In what country do you live in? Republicans never want to count all the votes because it goes against them and as Digby has written many times they set arbitrary deadlines that must never be violated.

No, Republicans hold that the single most important principle upon which our electoral system rests is the sanctity of the arbitrary deadline which under no circumstances shall ever be overruled, even if it conflicts with another arbitrary deadline, is incomprehensibly vague or was instituted by the legislature for purely administrative purposes that had no bearing on anyone but a couple of election workers in outlying suburbs (if anyone can even remember why it was instituted in the first place.)

If an arbitrary deadline is on the books it is sacrosanct under any and all circumstances and no court in the land has a right to tamper with it.

This is because a deep and abiding fidelity to bureaucratic timetables that mean absolutely nothing is the very foundation of our democracy. You can look it up.

*This rule only applies to those elections in which Republicans might lose if all the votes are counted.