The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC) prosecuted New Jersey on Tuesday night over Gov. Phil Murphy’s executive mandate to send e-mail votes to all voters continues with a pattern of legal action by the two entities against states that implement such voting systems.
The lawsuit warns that Murphy’s movement is illegal and will create a “recipe for disaster” for voter fraud.
“In a direct usurping of the legislature’s authority, Gov. Murphy has issued executive order 177 … which is intended to rewrite the election code for the November 2020 elections. This violent coup was not authorized by state law and affects both the election clause as election clause of the U.S. Constitution and “federal law,” the lawsuit claims.
The Trump campaign and the RNC step into New Jersey over an executive order from Gov. Phil Murphy setting up universal vote-by-post for the November 3 election. (Reuters)
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“Moreover, the mayor in his haste created a system that violates the right to be eligible for citizenship,” the suit continues. “By ordering universal vote-by-mail, he has created a recipe for disaster. Fraud and invalid votes dilute the votes of honest citizens and deprive them of their right to vote in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
The pack reports cases of voter fraud in New Jersey, including a short-term election in Paterson, NJ, this year, and claims that amid the pandemic Democrats have been engaging in a “hard transition to universal vote-by-mail” “Eliminate voter identification requirements, and remove other existing security features.”
Democrats have backed down from the Trump campaign and RNC claims that postal voting is vulnerable to fraud, citing a litany of studies showing that voting through voting is rare in the United States. Indeed, some states have in the past successfully conducted universal post-vote elections. And the number of voters who choose to vote absent has increased significantly in recent elections, largely without incident.
Democrats, emphasizing the danger of the pandemic, have said that ballot submissions are a safe and secure alternative to sending millions of voters to the polls on Nov. 3.
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“COVID-19 affects almost every aspect of our lives, from our health and safety to how we participate in our democracy,” Murphy said in a statement on the executive order. “This virus continues to threaten public health, and with today’s announcement, we ensure that voters in New Jersey do not have to make a decision between exercising their right to vote and protecting their well-being.”
But Republicans have argued that in the unique circumstances of the pandemic, with states having no experience sending millions of votes to voters whose addresses may have changed or died, vote-by-post is particularly vulnerable. They have ruled that systems in which voters first request an absentee ballot – and thus require the voter to confirm that they intend to use their postal vote – are safer.
The case of the Trump campaign also says that because voters who choose to vote in person but do not bring the votes that were sent to them via preliminary ballot will have to have longer lines on election day and be behind the state trying to count the votes.
“This massively increased volume of preliminary votes raises major concerns about increased rules and waiting times for voting and the state’s ability to process any preliminary vote properly,” the pack says. “It will be impossible for civil servants to properly inventory, transport and dig the massively increased volume of preliminary votes through the prescribed statutory process.”
In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal Tuesday, Trump deputy campaign manager Justin Clark also said personal votes are being devalued.
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“Mr. Murphy’s order reduces votes in person – the safest method – to second-class status by considering each vote in a poll as ‘preliminary,'” Clark said. “Citizens who want to vote in person face a real threat that their votes will not be counted.”
Part of Clark’s assertion is false. Voters may deliver post-in ballots to their polling stations that would not be available. Murphy’s commission says “[a]new voter who appears at a polling station on the day of the November general election and does not return a postal ballot … will vote by a preliminary ballot. “
But Clark is right that those who personally vote without the vote sent to them risk not having their votes registered due to the fact that their vote would be provisional.
Trump’s lawsuit further warns of the risk of ballot harvests – as politically motivated individuals as groups collect large numbers of post-in ballot papers, often from vulnerable individuals such as the elderly, and turn them into mass.
“Because of these widespread inaccuracies in the registration registers of a state, a state that sends votes to all registered voters will necessarily send votes to persons who do not choose to vote as others with false registrations, invalid registrations, outdated registrations, and to the deceased, “Trump’s suit says. “These risks are compounded by the practice of ballot harvesting – that is, coordinated efforts to have third parties collect absent votes from voters and deliver them to polling stations as polling stations.”
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Murphy’s mandate takes some precautionary measures to protect against ballot box voting, and requires that[a] voter can only return the post-vote they have personally voted for at their designated polling station. “But it would also set up dropboxes around the state that are not controlled like polling stations, and voters can still vote in the polls they cast, as happened in the abusive Paterson, NJ, municipal election earlier this year. that ended with four people accused of voter fraud and a do-over of elections.
Earlier this month, the Trump campaign also prosecuted Nevada, after passing a law to send votes to all voters, legislation that Trump called in a tweet “an illegal late-night coup.” The legal action also comes amid controversy over actions of newly-appointed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to make money-saving changes to the U.S. Postal Service – which he said he would wait until the election set – which have led to planned congressional hearings both on Friday and Monday on the matter.
Fox News reached out to Murphy’s office for comment, but did not immediately respond.
