So reads the headline today in the McClatchy-owned Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The McClatchy reporter, Greg Hadley, reports that Trump urged supporters in a Greeley, CO rally on Sunday night to “vote again if they are suspicious of their vote not being counted.”
According to Hadley,
Trump then instructed rally-goers to visit a nearby voting center and check to see if their first ballot had been counted, then, “they’ll void your old ballot, they’ll give you a new ballot.”
Of course tactics are illegal. Trump justifies his request by claiming some Hillary supporters will do it “four or five times.”
The article also notes “Trump’s claims that the election is rigged has already given rise to one incident of voter fraud on his own behalf, as an Iowa woman attempted to vote twice for Trump because she believed her first vote would be counted for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.”
That last point is key. Trump’s spurious claims of a rigged election will give rise to fraudulent voting by his supporters who will justify it with “the other side does it” argument or out of concern that their vote is rigged to change their vote to Hillary.
The larger issue is this: how did the nation reach a point where a Donald Trump holds so much sway? That question needs to remain before us long after the election. It should provoke reconsideration of how trust can be restored in the rule of law.