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Re: Biden v Dump 1: If not now, when? If not us, who?
Trump Is Laying the Groundwork to Contest the Results of the Election
Trump Is Laying the Groundwork to Contest the Results of the Election
It’s not always a good idea to take seriously, much less literally, many of Donald Trump’s Twitter rants. But his campaign against voting by mail is becoming more, not less, intense and shows every sign of becoming a major MAGA election-year message. His latest offering is so strident that it’s completely incompatible with any sort of attempt to spin, qualify, or walk back.
He’s misinformed and misinforming about Gavin Newsom, of course; the governor’s order sent ballots to registered voters, not “anyone living in the state.” And beyond that, a big majority of California voters (70 percent in the March 3 primary) are already getting mail ballots automatically as permanent vote-by-mail registrants. As for what he means by “professionals telling all of these people” how to vote, this is transparently a reference to the grand, if racist, conservative myth of minority voters being herded like cattle into the Democratic column via bribes or some other illicit method.
But beyond that, Trump is now regularly claiming that voting by mail is inherently illegitimate, except for grudging exceptions for people who can’t make it to the polls. So, presumably, states that allow for no-excuse voting by mail in November are holding “substantially fraudulent” elections. That’s 34 states who do so by law (including battleground states Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), 11 more that so far are waiving excuse requirements this pandemic year (including New Hampshire), and another that may be forced to do so by a lawsuit (Texas).
So in a very real sense, unless Trump backs off his claims that voting by mail means a “rigged election,” he’s letting us know that he and his supporters will be justified in challenging any adverse results in states that allow this terrible practice to take place.
A group of 30 political scientists who recently met to look at scary post-election scenarios explained exactly how a vote-by-mail contest might play out, as Louis Jacobson noted at Cook Political Report:
He’s misinformed and misinforming about Gavin Newsom, of course; the governor’s order sent ballots to registered voters, not “anyone living in the state.” And beyond that, a big majority of California voters (70 percent in the March 3 primary) are already getting mail ballots automatically as permanent vote-by-mail registrants. As for what he means by “professionals telling all of these people” how to vote, this is transparently a reference to the grand, if racist, conservative myth of minority voters being herded like cattle into the Democratic column via bribes or some other illicit method.
But beyond that, Trump is now regularly claiming that voting by mail is inherently illegitimate, except for grudging exceptions for people who can’t make it to the polls. So, presumably, states that allow for no-excuse voting by mail in November are holding “substantially fraudulent” elections. That’s 34 states who do so by law (including battleground states Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), 11 more that so far are waiving excuse requirements this pandemic year (including New Hampshire), and another that may be forced to do so by a lawsuit (Texas).
So in a very real sense, unless Trump backs off his claims that voting by mail means a “rigged election,” he’s letting us know that he and his supporters will be justified in challenging any adverse results in states that allow this terrible practice to take place.
A group of 30 political scientists who recently met to look at scary post-election scenarios explained exactly how a vote-by-mail contest might play out, as Louis Jacobson noted at Cook Political Report:
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