The problem with Trump’s all-debunkable mail-in ballot claims

08/14/2020 USA


“President Trump and Melania Trump have both requested their mail-in votes. They were sent in an email to the first family yesterday, via the Palm Beach County Elections website.”

But wait. Isn’t that the same Trump who tweeted on July 21 that “Mail-in voting, except changed by the courts, will lead to the MOST CORRUPT FALL in our nation’s history! #RIGGEDELECTION”? And the same Trump who said post-in balloting is rubbish of fraud and abuse? And the same Trump who on Thursday acknowledged blocking legislation for coronavirus relief because it includes dollars for the U.S. Postal Service – in hopes of making it harder for people to vote by mail and vote for those votes count?

So how does Trump explain this bit of hypocrisy? By suggesting that what he does is voting by absent – and that there is a clear difference between doing so and voting by post.

Here is what Trump said at a July 30 news conference when asked about his past history of absent votes:

“Absentee is different. Absentee, you have to work. You have to submit for applications. You have to go through a whole procedure …

“… for example, I’m an absentee voter because I can not be in Florida because I’m in Washington,” Trump said. “I’m in the White House, so I’ll be an absentee voter. We have a lot of absentee voters, and it works. We’re in favor of absentees, but it’s a lot different than millions of people in California. send out voting forms. Well, where are they going? You read where postmen are in big trouble right now. You read where city councils are in big trouble right now. Election fraud over the whole vote. “

(Sidebar: Trump has since said that voting by post in Florida is OK because the state “has a great Republican governor, and it had a great Republican governor. Ron DeSantis, Rick Scott, two great governors. They have been able to get the absentee ballots extremely professional. Florida is different from other states. “He still opposes voting by post in other states – presumably with Democrats instead of Republican governors.)

The thing about Trump’s claim is that it is, now, completely wrong. There is absolutely no difference in the process of getting an absent vote and vote by mail. It’s the same thing.

Here’s Lou Jacobson from PolitiFact about:

“Regardless of the terminology, election experts say there is no difference between how ‘absenteeism’ and ‘mail-in ballots’ are handled.

“In 34 states and Washington, DC, voters can use ‘no-vote’ for absentees, according to the National Conference of State Legislators. Under no-vote for absentees, voters do not have to certify that they will be outside the jurisdiction on election day. “if they cannot come to the polls because of an illness or disability.”

There is zero difference between how an absent vote is handled and a request for an e-mail. None. Concluding that Trump’s statement was “false”, Jacobson stated: “There is no difference between absent votes and votes by post. All postal votes, regardless of how they are requested, are treated the same as they are. cast, and they require verification before counting. “

Even in the examples Trump regularly cites as alleged evidence of fraud in collecting post-in, there is no actual, well, fraud.

* In Virginia, a group of third parties sent more than 500,000 absent voice applications with the wrong return address on them. But there is zero evidence for Trump’s claim that voice applications were “sent to dogs, to dead people.”
In the 12th Congressional District of New York, rep. Carolyn Maloney a Democratic primary after six weeks of counting email votes. Yes, the process was far too slow, but there is again zero evidence that the effort “shook its way into an election.”

The truth is that what Trump is doing here is misleading and selectively shameful. He tries to differentiate between absenteeism and mail-in votes only because he uses the former. He can not indicate the whole system that he has not only used in the past, but also used in these elections. And so he suggests, wrongly, that there is some sort of significant difference between absent voices and voice-by-post. Which, again, is not the case.

.

Tags

Designed by Tricksfast Solutions
© Copyright 2024, All Rights Reserved