Trump just comes out and says it: The GOP is hurt when it’s easier to vote

[homersapien 11,373]

Republicans are engineering an electoral disaster this fall

By Editorial Board 

June 10, 2020 at 2:41 p.m. EDT

AFTER A shambolic election two years ago — and several examples of poorly run primaries leading up to this week — one might have imagined that Georgia would have prepared better for its Tuesday primary vote. Instead, polling places in and around Atlanta were swamped and lines stretched for hours as poll workers struggled with new voting machines and sanitation procedures. Georgia’s experience confirmed that the coronavirus pandemic, combined with the sort of Election Day incompetence that has for years been a sad fixture of American democracy, threatens the integrity of the November presidential election. There is hardly anything more important than getting voting procedures and technology right over the next five months.

Unfortunately, many Republican politicians continue to manipulate voting rules for partisan advantage, exploiting the pandemic as an opportunity to suppress voting. The latest example is in Iowa. The state held a notably successful primary last Tuesday that smashed turnout records despite the closure of many polling places, in large part because the state’s Republican secretary of state sent every voter an absentee ballot application. That allowed local officials to consolidate in-person voting locations without causing the sorts of massive backups that marred primaries in Wisconsin, the District and Georgia.

Republican lawmakers in Iowa saw that success and apparently concluded that it should not be repeated. Just days after the primary, a state Senate committee advanced a bill that would bar the secretary of state from sending out absentee ballot applications to voters who have not requested them. Though voters in many states have complained that they never got the absentee ballots they requested, the Iowa legislation would make it harder for election officials to process absentee voter requests. It would also ban them from consolidating many polling places, even though the pandemic is likely to lead to a pressing shortage of poll workers and intensive pandemic precautions should be observed. The Des Moines Register points out that these moves come on top of the legislature’s probably illegal efforts to force felons to pay restitution before being able to vote.

To be sure, sending mail-in ballot applications to all voters and consolidating polling places do not guarantee a smooth Election Day. The District did both and still saw long lines, in part because officials closed too many locations. Georgia’s secretary of state sent out absentee ballot applications two months before the state’s primary, yet many voters still complained that they never received the mail-in ballots they asked for.

Even so, imagine how much worse the votes in the District and Georgia would have been if even fewer people had obtained mail-in ballots. And imagine how bad it could get if lots of poll workers refuse to show up to staff voting locations, forcing chaotic last-minute closures.

If Republicans fear that more people voting hurts them — and President Trump has explicitly said this is the case — the honorable response is to change their candidates or their policies. Instead, the party seeks to impose more electoral disasters on people who should feel nothing but fed up.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-are-engineering-an-electoral-disaster-this-fall/2020/06/10/15afd038-ab3b-11ea-9063-e69bd6520940_story.html

[homersapien 11,373]

Why the Republicans’ 2020 strategy is to keep as many people as possible from voting

Fred Hiatt 

Editorial page editor

June 14, 2020 at 4:20 p.m. EDT

What does it say about a political party when its chief strategy is to prevent as many people as possible from voting — and its leader admits as much?

That is where Republicans find themselves heading into the 2020 election.

For the latest, breathtaking example of this pathology, look at Iowa. On June 2, Iowa held a highly successful primary, with record turnout — and Republicans in the state legislature immediately initiated action to ensure the success is not repeated in the fall.

Yes, not repeated. For many Republicans, a high-turnout, no-chaos election is a result to be avoided at all costs.

In fairness, not all Republicans. The secretary of state who engineered Iowa’s primary success, Paul Pate, is also a Republican. To allow for safe voting in a time of pandemic, Pate mailed every registered voter an absentee ballot request form — not a ballot, mind you, just a request form — and extended the early voting period from 29 days to 40 days.

“My goal was to protect Iowa voters and poll workers while finding ways to conduct a clean and fair election,” Pate told the Des Moines Register.

Well, there was your mistake. A clean and fair election? GOP senators rushed in to make sure that won’t happen again. On Wednesday, the GOP-controlled state senate approved legislation to bar Pate from sending absentee ballot request forms to anyone who hasn’t asked for one.

Iowa’s county auditors, who administer elections, pronounced themselves “baffled” by the legislation, given the “very successful” primary, as Roxanna Moritz, head of their association, noted.

It’s not baffling to anyone who has been following Republican vote-limiting efforts around the country. The GOP has gone to great lengths to shrink and control the voter rolls, particularly trying to impede young people and black people from voting.

Many of their methods predate the coronavirus pandemic: obstructive voter-ID laws; closing polling places in selected neighborhoods so that voters must travel long distances or wait in long lines; impeding voting in college towns; finding pretexts to scrub voters from the rolls; opposing automatic or same-day registration; blocking former prisoners from voting, even when (as in Florida) nearly two-thirds of voters approve a referendum saying former felons who have served their time should be allowed to vote.

Now, in coronavirus time, they have gone into overdrive, doing everything they can to block the orderly issuing and processing of absentee ballots, which will be essential in November if the virus is still rampaging. They limit access as narrowly as possible where they are in control, as in Texas; they sue where they are not, as in California.

When they bother to justify this extraordinarily destructive campaign, Republicans generally pretend they are fighting election fraud. Fraud does exist — most recently, committed by Republicans in a North Carolina congressional race — but it is rare. Absentee voting would not greatly increase the risk, particularly if Congress adequately funded state election offices for the emergency — which, in another chaos-enhancing move, Republican senators are refusing to do.

No, fraud is just the excuse. President Trump early in his term appointed a commission with the express mission of locating this Loch Ness monster of Republican mythology, and it collapsed in utter, embarrassed failure.

Then in March, as he is wont to do, Trump gave the game away. Referring to a Democratic proposal to allow more vote-by-mail, he said, “They had things — levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”

Why would the leader of the world’s oldest democracy oppose high levels of voting? And why would one of the nation’s two leading parties fear high levels of voting? Why would Republicans not instead try to win those votes?

The answer is not much of a puzzle. The party has hitched itself to a leader whose appeal is based on nostalgia for a racist past. In a changing America, where most voters would prefer a vision of an improved future, this is not a message that can win a majority of votes if turnout is unimpeded.

So Republicans do everything they can to suppress turnout, and black turnout most of all.

It is a strategy born of moral and intellectual bankruptcy. A political party with faith in itself and its ideas competes by offering the most attractive possible candidates and policies, and trying to win the most support.

Sadly, that is no longer the Republican way.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-2020-strategy-is-to-prevent-as-many-people-as-possible-from-voting/2020/06/14/110271d6-ace3-11ea-94d2-d7bc43b26bf9_story.html

[homersapien 11,373]

‘My biggest risk’: Trump says mail-in voting could cost him reelection

President Donald Trump called mail-in voting the biggest threat to his reelection and said his campaign's multimillion-dollar legal effort to block expanded ballot access could determine whether he wins a second term.

In an Oval Office interview Thursday focusing on the 2020 election, the president also warned his party in blunt terms not to abandon him and cast Hillary Clinton as a more formidable opponent than Joe Biden, despite Biden's commanding lead in polls.

The president’s assertion that mail-in voting will endanger his reelection comes as states across the country are rushing to accommodate remote voting in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Millions of voters could be disenfranchised if they decide to stay home on Election Day rather than risk contracting the virus at crowded polling stations.

But Trump and his campaign argue, despite a lack of evidence, that widespread mail-in voting will benefit Democrats and invite fraud. The Republican Party is spending tens of millions of dollars on a multifront legal battle.

“My biggest risk is that we don’t win lawsuits,” Trump said. “We have many lawsuits going all over. And if we don’t win those lawsuits, I think — I think it puts the election at risk.”

Trump was asked a two-part question during the interview: Would a substantial amount of mail-in voting — which is widely expected because of coronavirus — cause him to question the legitimacy of the election? And would he accept the results no matter what?

“Well, you can never answer the second question, right? Because Hillary kept talking about she’s going to accept, and they never accepted it. You know. She lost too. She lost good.” Clinton conceded the day after the 2016 election.

Trump struck a firmer note last week in an interview with Fox News, when he said he would leave office peacefully if he lost.

The president’s rare admission of concern about his political future comes at the most precarious moment of his presidency. Polls have shown the president trailing in an array of key states — some of which haven’t been lost by a Republican in decades — amid criticism of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and his response to the protests against police brutality.

Now, with Republicans fighting to keep their Senate majority, lawmakers running in competitive races are having to decide whether to align themselves with the president or risk his wrath by creating daylight. Trump made clear those who choose the latter will pay a heavy price.

Joined by top aides, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner, Trump put Senate Republicans on notice: Running away from him would only trigger a revolt by his loyalists.

“If they don’t embrace, they’re going to lose, because, you know, I have a very hard base. I have the strongest base people have ever seen,” said Trump, who met with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell last week to discuss the party’s prospects in key Senate races.

Trump is keenly aware of how he stacks up against other Republicans on the ballot this fall. At one point during the interview, White House Political Director Brian Jack handed the president a document showing how he had fared better in several primaries this spring than a handful of Republican senators he shared the ballot with in their home states. Included on the chart was North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, one of the most vulnerable Republican incumbents up for reelection this November. While Tillis received 78 percent in the state's March primary, Trump got 94 percent, it noted.

"Wow, that’s great in North Carolina, huh?" Trump remarked as he looked over the sheet.

Senate Republicans have largely remained in lockstep with the president, but there have been a few exceptions. Maine Sen. Susan Collins, one of the party’s most vulnerable lawmakers, has yet to say whether she backs Trump’s reelection and didn’t appear with him when he visited her home state last week. Michigan GOP Senate candidate John James recently told black community leaders that he disagreed with Trump on “plenty, plenty of issues.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/19/trump-interview-mail-voting-329307

[BobLouder 7]

The Constitution guarantees it should be very easy to vote so that even the laziest people, who could care less about who or what they are voting on, get their vote counted.  And it ensures that the laziest people, who do not even care about the country, are able to let a proxy vote for them, under the guise that they are voting.

He was honest ... now why won't you be?  You want a large portion of the non-participants who have NO interest in voting to vote by proxy so your liberal candidate wins. Be honest, there is no sincerity in your quest to get people who don;t really care about voting to vote for your candidate, even if you lie to them about filling out that form who helps your candidate win.

 

 

 

[homersapien 11,373]

4 hours ago, BobLouder said:

The Constitution guarantees it should be very easy to vote so that even the laziest people, who could care less about who or what they are voting on, get their vote counted.  And it ensures that the laziest people, who do not even care about the country, are able to let a proxy vote for them, under the guise that they are voting.

He was honest ... now why won't you be?  You want a large portion of the non-participants who have NO interest in voting to vote by proxy so your liberal candidate wins. Be honest, there is no sincerity in your quest to get people who don;t really care about voting to vote for your candidate, even if you lie to them about filling out that form who helps your candidate win.

 

 

 

There is nothing wrong with allowing for voting by mail.  Millions already do so. My wife and I have been doing so ever since we turned 65.

And the advantages of doing so in an epidemic are obvious to anyone with half a brain. And don't lecture me on my motivations, especially when you are making your own crystal clear. 

They are the exact same as Trump's.  (Who also has voted by mail, along with others in his family.  So I guess he is "lazy" too?)

[BobLouder 7]

1 hour ago, homersapien said:

There is nothing wrong with allowing for voting by mail.  Millions already do so. My wife and I have been doing so ever since we turned 65.

And the advantages of doing so in an epidemic are obvious to anyone with half a brain. And don't lecture me on my motivations, especially when you are making your own crystal clear. 

They are the exact same as Trump's.  (Who also has voted by mail, along with others in his family.  So I guess he is "lazy" too?)

Vote by mail during an Pandemic is a very reasonable decision.  But, the Left will continue to push the envelop as far as they can.  To think that there will not be abuse is naive as best.   There will be.  The Left will push for online voting where people will get paid to vote a certain way for cash.  With few exceptions, Vote by mail should be used only in rare cases - when there is not a Pandemic.  The last one  as bad as the present one ... was over 100 years ago.  But, the Radical Left will push for options that would bring corruption.  

[homersapien 11,373]

1 hour ago, BobLouder said:

Vote by mail during an Pandemic is a very reasonable decision.  But, the Left will continue to push the envelop as far as they can.  To think that there will not be abuse is naive as best.   There will be.  The Left will push for online voting where people will get paid to vote a certain way for cash.  With few exceptions, Vote by mail should be used only in rare cases - when there is not a Pandemic.  The last one  as bad as the present one ... was over 100 years ago.  But, the Radical Left will push for options that would bring corruption.  

Yeah, the left is just evil.  Huh? 

Apparently you haven't noticed, all of the voter suppression activity is coming from the right. 

And that's not hypothetical like your arguments.

[BobLouder 7]

On 6/20/2020 at 3:51 PM, homersapien said:

Yeah, the left is just evil.  Huh? 

Apparently you haven't noticed, all of the voter suppression activity is coming from the right. 

And that's not hypothetical like your arguments.

Facts can be a problem ...

https://www.al.com/wire/2014/04/some_alabama_counties_have_mor.html

4 Alabama counties have more active, registered voters than adult population

ALL FOUR vote DEM... O'bama and Holder did nothing about it.

 

[homersapien 11,373]

2 minutes ago, BobLouder said:

Facts can be a problem ...

https://www.al.com/wire/2014/04/some_alabama_counties_have_mor.html

4 Alabama counties have more active, registered voters than adult population

ALL FOUR vote DEM... O'bama and Holder did nothing about it.

 

 So are you saying all these (registered) people actually voted?

Maybe the records need to be updated.  

[BobLouder 7]

1 minute ago, homersapien said:

 So are you saying all these (registered) people actually voted?

Maybe the records need to be updated.  

Correct, and in 4 DEM BLUE counties, there was corruption.  DEMs = Vote early and often.

[homersapien 11,373]

11 hours ago, BobLouder said:

Correct, and in 4 DEM BLUE counties, there was corruption.  DEMs = Vote early and often.

BS. Prove it.

[Mikey 16,597]

Trump just comes out and says it: The GOP is hurt when it’s easier to vote cheat.

 

Fixed!

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

On 6/21/2020 at 11:23 PM, BobLouder said:

Facts can be a problem ...

https://www.al.com/wire/2014/04/some_alabama_counties_have_mor.html

4 Alabama counties have more active, registered voters than adult population

ALL FOUR vote DEM... O'bama and Holder did nothing about it.

 

It's a state problem to clean up voter rolls.  Obama and Holder would have been out of their jurisdiction.  Pesky facts and such.

[wdefromtx 3,159]

3 minutes ago, Brad_ATX said:

It's a state problem to clean up voter rolls.  Obama and Holder would have been out of their jurisdiction.  Pesky facts and such.

True but so are seatbelt laws, drinking age, etc.  and the federal government played a huge role to get those established a certain way. 

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

23 minutes ago, wdefromtx said:

True but so are seatbelt laws, drinking age, etc.  and the federal government played a huge role to get those established a certain way. 

Voter rolls, which is what this dude is posting about, is only a state problem.  You register to vote with the state, not the federal government.  Votes are counted by the state.  Etc, etc.  If he wants to blame someone, blame the incompetence in the State of Alabama.  Throw a dart and you'll find it in the state government there.

Only thing the feds can do is make laws for voting age, granting the right to vote to sets of citizens (see: African-Americans and Women's suffrage from the past), etc.  

[wdefromtx 3,159]

15 minutes ago, Brad_ATX said:

Voter rolls, which is what this dude is posting about, is only a state problem.  You register to vote with the state, not the federal government.  Votes are counted by the state.  Etc, etc.  If he wants to blame someone, blame the incompetence in the State of Alabama.  Throw a dart and you'll find it in the state government there.

Only thing the feds can do is make laws for voting age, granting the right to vote to sets of citizens (see: African-Americans and Women's suffrage from the past), etc.  

The federal government can use other techniques to coerce states to make changes. They do it all the time on things that are not in their jurisdiction. I’m not saying I think the federal needs to do it for this situation. If they want to force states to make changes, they can and do. Feds can only make so many laws...but they have a funny way of getting states to change things if they cut off the purse strings. 

 

For instance they could tell states they need to update their voter rolls every x amount of time to make sure it all aligns with who should really be voting.....or hold back money that supports the elections. 

 

[homersapien 11,373]

10 hours ago, Mikey said:

Trump just comes out and says it: The GOP is hurt when it’s easier to vote cheat.

 

Fixed!

If it's good enough for Trump and his family, it's good enough for everyone.

[Mikey 16,597]

1 minute ago, homersapien said:

If it's good enough for Trump and his family, it's good enough for everyone.

The Trump family doesn't have picture ID's? Who knew?

[homersapien 11,373]

31 minutes ago, Mikey said:

The Trump family doesn't have picture ID's? Who knew?

They have voted and continue to vote by mail:

"Trump has used the absentee voting system in at least three elections: Trump voted by mail during New York’s mayoral election in 2017, cast an absentee ballot during the state’s midterm election the following year, and again used a vote-by-mail ballot in Florida’s primary election in 2020. 

In 2017, Trump, first lady Melania Trump and their daughter, Ivanka Trump, all cast absentee votes during New York’s mayoral race.

In 2018, Trump again voted by mail during New York’s midterm election. The Hill reported in November at the time:

President Trump and first lady Melania Trump have cast their ballots in the 2018 midterm elections.

A White House spokesperson said Friday that both Trumps voted by absentee ballot in New York “a few weeks ago.” That means they will not have to travel to the state, where they are registered to vote, to cast a ballot in person.

"In 2020, after changing his primary residence to Florida, Trump cast an absentee ballot in that state’s presidential primary election. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported that a representative for the president picked up absentee ballots from the Palm Beach County Elections Office and then returned them the day before the primary:

As coronavirus cases started increasing and concern mounted in the days before Florida’s presidential primary, the state’s voters increasingly turned to voting by mail. President Donald Trump did the same thing, taking a moment to vote — undoubtedly for himself.

So did First Lady Melania Trump, who presumably also voted for her husband.

Eight days before the March 17 primary, a Trump representative picked up vote-by-mail ballots at the Palm Beach County Elections Office, said Supervisor of Elections Wendy Sartory Link. The same person returned the ballots to the elections office the day before the primary.

In all, Trump has voted by mail or submitted an absentee ballot in at least three elections. We reached out to the New York State Board of Elections for more information about Trump’s vote-by-mail record and will update this article if more information becomes available. 

During a press conference in April, Trump was asked how he could reconcile the fact that he has voted by mail in previous elections considering his position that voting by mail was corrupt:

President Trump: "I think mail-in voting is horrible, it's corrupt."

Reporter: "You voted by mail in Florida's election last month, didn't you?"

Trump: "Sure. I can vote by mail"

Reporter: "How do you reconcile with that?"

Trump: "Because I'm allowed to." pic.twitter.com/Es8ZNyB3O1

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) April 7, 2020"

 

[Mikey 16,597]

3 minutes ago, homersapien said:

During a press conference in April, Trump was asked how he could reconcile the fact that he has voted by mail in previous elections considering his position that voting by mail was corrupt:

Apparently the reporter is too stupid to understand that there are some people with legitimate reasons to vote by mail. I imagine the POTUS is one of those. A sick person or someone traveling out of the country on business would be another. That's very, very different from random hacks being able to stuff a ballot box, willy-nilly.

Surely you are smarter than that reporter, aren't you?

[homersapien 11,373]

12 minutes ago, Mikey said:

Apparently the reporter is too stupid to understand that there are some people with legitimate reasons to vote by mail. I imagine the POTUS is one of those. A sick person or someone traveling out of the country on business would be another. That's very, very different from random hacks being able to stuff a ballot box, willy-nilly.

Surely you are smarter than that reporter, aren't you?

That's hilarious.  Piss poor hilarious. 

In case you haven't noticed - and being a MAGA, you probably haven't - we are in a pandemic.  And it won't be over by November.

(And btw, the reporter didn't provide commentary, he/she just reported the facts.  I am the one who bolded the hypocritical statements by Trump.)

Trump knows he doesn't have a majority of the populace that support him and never will.  THAT's why he is opposing voting by mail.  The greater the turnout, the worse his chances are.  

You aren't really that stupid are you?

[Mikey 16,597]

12 hours ago, homersapien said:

The greater the turnout, the worse his chances are.  

That's only true if the "turnout" is high because of stuffed ballot boxes. If most of the votes counted are legal I like Trump's chances in November.

[BobLouder 7]

On 6/24/2020 at 11:58 PM, Brad_ATX said:

It's a state problem to clean up voter rolls.  Obama and Holder would have been out of their jurisdiction.  Pesky facts and such.

You are incorrect ... it is something that the Justice Dept could, and should, have looked into. 

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

7 hours ago, BobLouder said:

You are incorrect ... it is something that the Justice Dept could, and should, have looked into. 

Thanks for showing your ignornance when it comes to division of powers, state vs federal issues, etc.

If it's a concern, it's something the Alabama Dept of Justice should look into.  Feds have no say in how voter rolls are done in the state.