Why Are Republicans So Afraid Of Vote By Mail

There hasn't been any public polling from Nevada available lately. The last one I found was a Fox poll in January that showed Trump down by 8 points (47-39%). Unless Nevada is entirely in its own universe, that chasm is much wider now. In 2016, Hillary beat Trump 539,260 (47.92) to 512,058 (46.50%), kind of close. However, since Trump was inaugurated, had already decreased by 21 points in February, 54% disapproving and 43% approving. Since then, 51,199 Nevadans have contracted COVID (994 more yesterday) and 847 have died (12 more yesterday). There are 16,622 cases per million Nevadans and that is very high-- and rapidly increasing. The idea of Nevada being won by Trump-- or even being as close as it was in 2016-- is preposterous.

The non-Sheldon Adelson Adelson-owned paper, the Las Vegas Sun published a piece yesterday reporting that on Monday morning Trump claimed-- via tweet-- that Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak and the legislature, controlled by Democrats, are "using COVID to steal the state" election, a day after the Senate passed a bill that had already passed the Assembly, requiring all Nevada voters to receive mail-in ballots-- even Republican and neo-Nazi Trump supporters. No Republicans passed the bill in either chamber.

More people voting scares the crap out of Trump and out of conservatives and Republicans in general. Trump says that a big vote by mail turnout all make "it impossible for Republicans to win the state." Maybe he and the Republicans should do something that makes voters want to support them.

On Monday morning, Josh Dawsey and Amy Gardner reported for the Washington Post that "Trump’s unfounded attacks on mail balloting are discouraging his own supporters from embracing the practice, according to polls and Republican leaders across the country, prompting growing alarm that one of the central strategies of his campaign is threatening GOP prospects in November. Multiple public surveys show a growing divide between Democrats and Republicans about the security of voting by mail, with Republicans saying they are far less likely to trust it in November. In addition, party leaders in several states said they are encountering resistance among GOP voters who are being encouraged to vote absentee while also seeing the president describe mail voting as 'rigged' and 'fraudulent.' As a result, state and local Republicans across the country fear they are falling dramatically behind in a practice that is expected to be key to voter turnout this year. Through mailers and Facebook ads, they are racing to promote absentee balloting among their own."

Pity. Requests for absentee ballots from Democrats are outpacing requests from Republicans by huge numbers-- even in red states but especially in swing states like North Carolina. Maybe Trump's animosity has something to with him being too stupid to figure out where or how to vote (2004)... except by mail:





Paul Constant, writing Sunday for Business Insider, noted that "When it comes to risk of coronavirus infection, vote-by-mail is the safest available option. If you can walk to your mailbox and back twice without encountering unmasked strangers, your entire voting experience is virtually guaranteed to be COVID-free. It's also easy, trackable, and transparent... So why wouldn't every state adopt a vote-by-mail system this year?"

Zach Silk, president of Civic Ventures was definitive about the problem: "First and foremost, let's be very clear that this is a problem perpetrated by one particular party, which is really the Senate Republicans."

For months, Trump has cast doubt on the reliability of mail-in ballots, presumably in an effort to throw the legitimacy of a potential Biden win into question. But "as much as Trump wants to make vote-by-mail a partisan issue, in most of the country it's not a partisan issue," Silk adds. Several red states, including Utah, have robust vote-by-mail systems, he explains, and he points out that the two demographics that have traditionally embraced voting by mail, "old people and the military, are two very strong Republican voting blocs. This shouldn't be partisan. We should be able to figure this out."

In fact, Silk says, some states are in the process of establishing safe voting systems right now. "Ohio is doing interesting things [to promote voting by mail], and Iowa is going to mail applications to everyone in the state" to encourage mail-in ballots.

Silk, a veteran campaign manager and political strategist, admits that Republican interference in elections is "the one thing that keeps me up at night about this election, the one that makes me the most nervous-- the inability of people to participate."

Uribe agrees that "we should enfranchise as many people as possible and make it as safe as possible for everyone" to vote, but she adds that "vote-by-mail is also not a panacea for this election."

...[V]ote-by-mail is by far the most reliable voting system, and it's worked in both blue and red states. But no system is entirely secure. Without serious, nonpartisan oversight, it's possible for Republicans to disenfranchise young people and people of color from voting by mail. Ballots from Republican strongholds with high densities of traditionally Democratic-voting populations, for example, are likely to see more signature challenges and larger rejection rates.

And Trump's continual assault on the system means that the American people will have to be especially vigilant against vote-tampering this year. Some experts believe that if partisan saboteurs were to commit an all-out assault on vote-by-mail results, "we can lose up to a five-percent election margin based on rejection rates of certain ballots-- and that five percent is something we can't afford to lose," Uribe said. That's why she believes that we need a more diverse selection of volunteer poll workers, as a safeguard against disenfranchisement.

It's easy to fall into the lazy trap of believing that voting is a once-a-year, or even a once-every-four-years, responsibility. But civic engagement demands more from us-- particularly in a time when democratic institutions are under attack.

"If you're looking to take near-term action" to promote voting by mail, Silk said, "you should be reaching out to your lawmakers-- especially if you have a Republican Senator in your state-- to communicate with them how crucial it is to protect the vote."

In other words, if you want your voice to be heard in November, you've also got to use your voice right now.

Tuesday Late Night Bonus Track: Nevada has no Senate race this year; but Maine sure does. And you know exactly who Trump wants to see win, right? Cauvin did a great job for the Lincoln Project on this one: