Got your attention?
The title is a claim being made by disingenuous Republicans. Of course, the GOP is officially standing with Trump on his claims. But the truth is much more complex.
The GOP is already coalescing behind Trump’s claim. And they’re using Jimmy Carter against us. Or so they claim.
Perhaps most of you were already aware of this.
I wasn’t. So, I am preparing the rest of you for this onslaught, so that we can fire back.
For those of you without WaPo accounts, this is a screen shot of the “editorial” by John R. Lott, Jr., linked to above:
First, and most obviously, Jimmy Carter didn’t call absentee voting anything in 2005. He co-chaired the Commission on Federal Election Reform in 2005. A commission put together after the 2004 election, to report on the current state of our electoral system and to recommend improvements. They then came out with a report.
Secondly, and MUCH MORE IMPORTANTLY, Jimmy Carter is now embracing mail-in-voting. And he knows a good bit about elections.
Reversing a view the GOP cites often, Jimmy Carter embraces vote-by-mail
May 7
Jimmy Carter has become the first former president to publicly support making mail-in voting a nationwide option this year.
His endorsement is important not only because he's among the few American elder statesmen with significant respect from voters of both parties. Carter has also spent much of the past three decades monitoring elections in other countries for signs of corruption. And he co-chaired a bipartisan commission that in 2005 labeled absentee ballots the easiest way to commit election fraud.
Republicans have frequently pointed to that conclusion in explaining their opposition to a widespread expansion of voting from home.
But Carter on Wednesday said a wave of safeguards adopted in the past 15 years have changed his mind — and that the coronavirus pandemic makes a quick embrace imperative.
"I urge political leaders across the country to take immediate steps to expand vote-by-mail and other measures that can help protect the core of American democracy – the right of our citizens to vote," the 95-year-old Democrat said in a statement from the Carter Center, the global humanitarian and peacemaking nonprofit he created in 1982, a year after his single term in the White House ended.
[...]
Already, 10 states, both red and blue, have abandoned for the time being rules that would normally severely restrict who may vote absentee. And half a dozen others have been forced by courts to loosen return deadlines, witness requirements and other regulations that would otherwise curtail mail-in voting — with a wave of additional lawsuits pending.
[...]
While a quarter of votes nationally were cast by mail ahead of time in the last presidential election, studies have found African-Americans are particularly adverse to voting this way.
What makes this GOP scam particularly pernicious, is that the reasons the 2005 commission found absentee voting dangerous is because of shenanigans normally committed BY REPUBLICANS:
"Citizens who vote at home, at nursing homes, at the workplace, or in church
are more susceptible to pressure, overt and subtle, or to intimidation. Vote buying schemes are far more difficult to detect when citizens vote by mail," the panel said.
Add to this:
The National Council of State Legislatures said all states allow for some sort of absentee balloting by mail. Five states do their elections entirely by mail: Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Utah.
Patricia Southwell, a political science instructor at the University of Oregon, told “The Atlantic Monthly” these states have had few problems with fraud.
“U.S. News” reported a total of 28 states and the District of Columbia offer “no excuses” mail-in ballots. Anyone can request a mail-in ballot with no explanation needed. They went on to say some of these states could be overwhelmed by all the requests they might receive during the pandemic.
The Arizona Secretary of State’s Office said more Republicans (1.03 million) are on the Permanent Early Voting List than Democrats (972,000).
Do mail-in ballots work against Republicans, as President Trump said? Someone who disagrees with this view is Mac Stipanovich, a former Republican strategist in Florida. In Allen’s story on NPR, he said Republicans there embraced mail-in ballots and early voting because it helped them.
Among other things, they knew who had received ballots so they could call them and make sure they returned them.
Yes, Utah has entirely mail-in elections. UTAH.
And Arizona has more Republicans than Dems on their permanent early voting roles.
Trump is going to claim massive voter fraud, whether he wins or loses. Remember, he told the country that 3 to 5 million voters in 2016 were fraud votes. And he was the WINNER.