Attorney General William Barr twice admitted in an interview that he has no evidence to back up his claim that foreign actors could flood the elections with “millions” of forged ballots if the United States implements a national mail-in-voting program. The conspiracy theory has already been debunked by electoral experts.
“I think there are a variety of concerns about mail ballots,” the country’s top prosecutor said to Steve Inskeep of NPR in an interview that aired on Friday.
“And let me clarify here: I am not talking about a mail-in ballot for a limited number of cases where someone, you know, is going to travel the world,” he said. “And the way the state has provided it is by mailing your ballot.”
Barr alluded to absentee ballots by mail, a voting option that he and several other top administration officials have exercised. Voted by mail in Virginia in 2012 and 2019, according to The Washington Post.
“I am talking about a comprehensive rule where all ballots are essentially mailed, and there are so many occasions of fraud there that they cannot be controlled,” Barr continued. “I think it would be very bad, but one of the things I mentioned was the possibility of counterfeiting.”
“Did you have evidence to raise that specific concern?” Inskeep asked.
“No, it’s obvious,” replied Barr.
“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to solve it,” he added.
If Russia were to attempt such a scheme, “it would have to reproduce the entire electoral administration apparatus somewhere in the middle of Siberia,” Charles Stewart, founding director of the Electoral Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told CBS News.
Barr, however, stated that the ballots are susceptible to fraud, because the security features are “quite primitive.” Once again, the country’s chief prosecutor was unable to offer evidence or explanation.
Inskeep wondered if Barr would be willing to accept an offer from Kim Wyman, the Republican attorney general for Washington state, who invited him to inspect his state’s security measures.
“Well, I’m not sure I’m going to go to Washington state right now,” Barr said, adding that he would be “happy to call her.”
“I don’t think Washington state has much experience dealing with the intelligence services of our adversaries,” continued the lawyer, who once stated that candidates should alert the FBI if they received political filth from a foreign intelligence service. (Barr said he would not extend the same orientation if it came from “a foreign adversary” in general.)
When asked if he believed that a choice made primarily by mail could be safe, Barr replied in the negative. She noted the fact that the government had misdirected “something like 20%” of the coronavirus relief checks. (About $ 1.4 billion went to dead people)
While aid check destinations were drawn from a federal list based on old tax returns, voters provide their most up-to-date address for mail ballots.
Furthermore, the decentralized nature of state elections in the country means that there is a wide variation of ballots, even locally for different candidates and issues.
Colorado has held elections by mail since 2013, and Secretary of State Jenna Griswold says “there are literally thousands of voting styles in each election.”
In response to Barr’s complaint, NPR political analyst Mike Parks said: “I have not spoken to any voting expert who believes this could happen.”
Although Americans favor voting by mail by a two-to-one margin, theories like Barr’s could cause a significant part of an already dubious electorate to question the integrity of the results.
In July 2016, then-candidate Trump publicly raised the possibility of interference in foreign elections and asked Russia to find the alleged missing emails from Hillary Clinton. Cyber attacks on their systems skyrocketed later that day.
