In a pair of Tweets, Trump threatened to withhold money to Michigan and Nevada over mail-in-voting proposals.
Michigan
Note: Trump deleted that Tweet. The Michigan Sec of State responded to it.
Link: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1263074783673102337
Nevada
In case Trump deletes the above Tweet as well, I captured an image.
Response From Michigan
Jocelyn Benson is Michigan’s Secretary of State. She sent applications, not ballots, like many Republican states.
Trump Repeats Unfounded Claims About Mail-In Voting
The NPR reports Trump Repeats Unfounded Claims About Mail-In Voting, Threatens Funding To 2 States
Elections are run by state and local governments, and it’s unclear what legal means Trump would have to withhold funds from the states.
Benson, the Michigan secretary of state, responded to Trump’s tweet noting that a number of states are taking the same action, including states with Republican election officials. In a statement, she added that absentee ballot “applications are mailed nearly every election cycle by both major parties and countless advocacy and nonpartisan organizations.”
Trump’s comments come two days after Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee, said she’s fine with absentee ballot applications. Trump’s objections come despite the fact that he voted by mail in Florida’s recent primary and has voted absentee in previous elections.
Vote-by-Mail Neutral Impact
Stanford University research shows Voting by Mail Shows Neutral Partisan Effects.
In examining voter data in three states with staggered rollouts of vote-by-mail programs — California, Utah and Washington — the researchers found that the introduction of mail-in voting did not have an effect, on average, on the share of voter turnout for either Republicans or Democrats.
Researchers also found that expanding vote-by-mail does not appear to increase the vote share for candidates of either political party. Taken together, the researchers say their findings essentially dispel concerns that mail-in voting would cause a major electoral shift toward one party.
“Our paper has a clear takeaway: Claims that vote-by-mail fundamentally advantages one party over the other appear overblown,” the researchers stated in their working paper.
Vote by Mail is the Default in 5 States Already
Few States Are Prepared To Switch To Voting By Mail
538 reports Few States Are Prepared To Switch To Voting By Mail.
Converting to a vote-by-mail system is arduous and expensive, and most states simply aren’t set up to smoothly conduct a mail election with their present resources and laws.
Patchwork of State Rules
-
Only five states regularly conduct mail elections by default: Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Washington.
-
Another 29 states (plus Washington, D.C.) give voters the option to vote by mail — also known as no-excuse absentee voting — in federal elections, but the burden is on the voter to request her ballot.
-
The remaining 16 states still require voters to provide a valid excuse if they want to vote by mail, although this year, some states may accept concerns around the coronavirus as an excuse. (New Hampshire has already moved to do that for the general election.)
-
Three more, though, do allow counties to opt into mail voting, and nine more allow certain elections to be conducted by mail — although these are typically low-turnout, local elections, a far cry from the 2020 presidential race.
-
Additionally, several states may consider expanding the use of mail voting in November, at least if the coronavirus is still a threat. The secretaries of state of Arizona and Minnesota want to mail ballots to all registered voters in the fall, and bills to that effect have been proposed in Illinois and Massachusetts as well. But don’t hold your breath: There are some major obstacles standing in the way of states expanding mail voting.
Republican Objections and Hurdles
Republicans, led by President Trump, are strongly opposing efforts to convert to mail voting, arguing it boosts Democratic turnout or enables voter fraud. In reality, most studies have shown that mail voting does not advantage either party, and voter fraud is extremely rare, both in person and by mail. Indeed, Republican legislators have already spoken out against the proposals in Arizona and Minnesota, and President Trump and other Republicans have said they will oppose national efforts to encourage election reform.
But the bigger hurdle may be logistical. States can’t just snap their fingers and pull off a mail election on a dime; election administrators with whom we spoke agreed that preparing for a mail election is a challenge.
Earlier this month, Wisconsin election officials reported being overwhelmed by absentee-ballot requests and simply being physically unable to fulfill them all, which led to many voters never receiving their ballots. So mail voting also requires more staff. Then, when the ballots are returned, they need to be counted. For some jurisdictions, this means even more bodies
And, of course, all this — from printing ballots, to ordering envelopes, to hiring and training new workers, to buying new equipment — costs money.
It is unclear what Trump means by cutting off funds or if any states will switch this years.
Perhaps Michigan and Nevada do, but it is unclear which party would benefit.
However, Trump’s unfounded claims and threats likely do benefit the Democrats.
This is Not 2016
It’s important to note that this is not 2016. Trump was never well liked, but Hillary was despised.
Yet, despite the fact that Hillary was despised, Trump barely won. Some people pat themselves on the back for predicting a Trump win.
In reality, they were lucky.
No one could have foreseen that Comey would come out of the blue at the last moment with a blast at Hillary. I believe that tipped the election.
Devil You Know
The Polls Show Trump is Getting Trounced by the Haters.
“People like that choose the devil they don’t know,” said Christopher Nicholas, a longtime Republican consultant based in Pennsylvania. “What’s different in 2020? He’s the incumbent. So, he’s the devil you know … That’s why those numbers have flipped so precipitously from ’16 to ’20, and there’s nothing inherent you can do about that, because Trump is the incumbent.”
“There’s no way Joe Biden will be as bad a candidate as Hillary Clinton.”
Those Who Hate Trump and Biden Will Decide the Election
Although this is not 2016, there is one similarity: In the end, Those Who Hate Trump and Biden Will Decide the Election
Mish
link to inquirer.com
Thanks for that link. Yeah, it’s not like there’s any secret that big-city political machines have been for a hundred years somewhat less than completely honest. Several decades ago, Chicago’s dead voters were a standard joke. I vaguely remember reading a book by Nixon’s kid about how she told her Dad that he should have fought his loss to JFK because JFK’s win hinged on dead voters in Chicago.
Nonetheless, and despite stories like that you’ve linked, the country is bigger than some corrupt big city machine.
So that’s how it’s gonna be if you don’t listen, you don’t get funds. Be it a state,organisation or whatever.
Oregon has voted by mail ONLY for decades. Now a few states expand access to mail in ballots and it is voter fraud?
Does this seriously need to be responded to?
It is going to be a very long year!
American elections are rife with fraud and tricks. All agencies that monitor elections in various countries claim that controls in America are so poor it isn’t even possible to monitor. Every election there are problems, whole bags of ballots missing in Detroit last election, ballot numbers don’t add up, thousands of ballots found for dead people in LA, etc etc. Always controversies over voting machines, vote counting, voter suppression, ID’s. Virtually no other OECD country has this level of noise, rumor, and problems. The political science literature is full of articles detailing statistical impossibilities in voting patterns.
It’s high time Americans take an example from Venezuela how you can organize honest elections with audit trails. Even in the DCR or Syria in war time they manage to do a better job.
Do you have some links handy for “All agencies that monitor elections in various countries claim that controls in America are so poor it isn’t even possible to monitor.” ? Would love for it to be true because it would be a surprise.
well, you can research the electronic ‘black box’ voting machines for one thing. They are basically designed to manipulate election results.
Unless and until the US uses proper paper ballots cross-referenced against hard copy voter lists, it’s a joke.
I suspect the reason that the Dems freaked out so much last time was because they ‘knew’ they had it rigged, but Trump’s military intelligence people out-gamed their hackers. What could they do? Go to the country saying that ‘we know we had him beat because we had hacked all the right machines, but they out-cheated us??!!’
I also want to see links to support your claims that our elections are fraudulent. No election can be totally clean in a nation of a third of a billion people but all claims ALL OF THEM about voter fraud being widespread by the democrats have been utterly debunked. Only a braindead sheep would come here and try to push the Trump claim of rigged elections which he only pushes himself in case he loses so it will be democrat voter fraud to blame for his loss rather than just being an amoral pig with no ethics and very little brains that nobody wanted to vote for. There has NEVER been vote fraud anywhere near the level of actually swaying an election one way or the other in our history and claims to the contrary are just partisans whining over their loss. The reality is that the real voter fraud has been grounded in republican disinformation prior to polling, and vote counting after.
On the other hand I will admit that until we terminate the electoral college, or impliment the Interstate Voting Compact to effectively end the EC, voter fraud is a non issue, because when a few hundred DISPROPORTIONATLY assigned people are the actual voters then all other arguments about the accuracy of voter intent fail.
This antedates Trumps by scores of years.
To judge whether elections were swayed, you would have to know everything about the rigging. However, rigging often focuses on key counties in swing states. Because of the system, there are absurd fulcrums that can decide contests (like Hispanics in Texas or just in Cleveland), so all attention is focuses on really small demographics.
Putting together a dossier would be a lot of effort (I’m not into this professionally, but have come across the same kinds of information repeatedly). I can start with 2 hours ago (for some reason my link is disappeared every time I try to embed) link to inquirer.com
I get what you are saying Web, but all things being equal the level of chicanery has never reached the point where anything could be realistically proven. For all Trump’s bloviating about fake news and rigged ballots there just is not enough proof and if there were he would not be president. 2016 was clearly the most tinkered with of elections in our country and even it did not meet the standard of proof required to change results.
It is clear though that our elections are being manipulated and that the people are getting tired of it. They want that to change but there are stumbling blocks that make real change very difficult. One is that by their very nature our votes are secret ballots, there is nothing short of having a neutral observer accompany voters to the booth and wait outside while they cast their PAPER ballot and then walk that sealed ballot to a locked strong box for counting with cameras running the whole time that is going to assure a clean vote. The more options like mail in or a mail app that allows voting from a smart phone or computer, the less you can trust the outcome.
For years, I bought in to the Electoral-College-is-past-its-due-date opinion. Taught in schools for decades.
And then came 2000. Bush and Gore tied. And the lawyers and political types descended on Florida like locusts. And stretched the whole thing out monstrously.
Now, expand that situation to the entire country. Wanna recount the whole nation’s votes 11-teen times? Right. What could possibly go wrong?
Anyway, when I realized that any voting system has to handle ties gracefully was when I realized that stuff I had been taught about the EC system had been taught to me by people, like me, lightly exposed to the real world of voting. Teachers? 🙂
Felix, I was a registered democrat voter in Leon County Florida in 2000. In August I moved to NY and it was too late to register there so requested an absentee ballot. I was getting anxious about it because a week before the election I still had not got mine. So I called the voter registrars office in Tallahassee and they sent it, I got it the day after the election when it could not be voted. I did not like Gore much but loathed Bush, and had this happened to just a few hundred people it would have changed the outcome.
I think that the EC tempts politicians and political parties to try to cheat. And it flies in the face of one man one vote by secret ballot.
Then there is the FACT that republicans are so outvoted by democrats in the popular vote that they would either have to alter their tactics and positions or face extinction at the polls at the national level. At least as far as the presidency goes the EC is the only way they can continue as a minority party and still retain power. And the only reason that works is through disproportionate representation, a vote in Wyoming or Alaska is worth a LOT more than a vote in California or NY. That is not democracy.
On the other hand, with the gift of hindsight, I now think I like George Bush more than I would have Al Gore. Sure Bush was sort of a dolt, but not all dolts are as bad as you thought when you first judged them. And Gore with his new found religion of Man Made Global Warming immediately after the election would have been a disaster for the US had he won and got his religion.
“…LOT more than a vote in California or NY. That is not democracy”
Right, the US is not a democracy. It’s a representational democracy, which, I gather, is another way of saying, “republic”.
The people that set up the system were quite aware of the track record for democracies so they explicitly avoided democracy. (Democracies don’t scale and collapse badly.) They knew that their national system had to scale. And it has, by a factor of 100. Impressive. And not what the “experts” of the day thought would happen.
Anyway, again, a voting system has to handle ties. It doesn’t make any difference what side of any particular tie you, or any other person is or was on. Ties must be handled gracefully.
Too, if you don’t overweight small groups, you’ll quickly end up with a tyranny of the majority. Over-weighting small groups is also reflected in 66% majority requirements.
Now, whether the “small groups” should be states is another question. In a world that has moved away from farming, geographic entities like states just don’t matter as much any more. That’s a huge (10000 year scale) transition much of the human world is going through right now.
Webej: You said “Anyway, again, a voting system has to handle ties. It doesn’t make any difference what side of any particular tie you, or any other person is or was on. Ties must be handled gracefully.”
Can’t disagree with that, the 2000 Florida vote was for all intents a tie and it was handled very badly indeed. In fact under the circumstances the whole national vote was being settled in Florida with it’s tie, and the SCOTUS stopped that settlement and simply declared Bush the winner by one single vote; Antonin Scalia’s. That is not what I call handling gracefully, that is a doctor taking a meat ax into the surgical theater.
You also say: “Too, if you don’t overweight small groups, you’ll quickly end up with a tyranny of the majority.”
And again I do not disagree with YOU! I do disagree with the system that gives overweight say to the minority because I feel there is no qualitative difference between a tyranny of the majority and of the minority. At least the majority getting it’s way has the advantage of the most people being happy with the outcome. Having a majority not only unhappy with outcomes and the smug victory by a minority is a recipe that can only spell poisonous doom for any nation.
I am trying to envision a system that would be better though and my imagination just is not up to the task. Parliamentary systems and their coalitions are just awful, and the only places that have been able to make them work really (enough to get by) are culturally monolithic, they could not even exist in a nation as culturally, racially, or economically diverse as the US. Australia can do it because their population is 98% white middle class all speaking English (the actual racial minority composition is claimed to be higher, but nearly all racial minorities there also list white as a partial ethnicity, the level of pure minority ethnicity is about 2%).
Europe is a bit more diverse but still manages though with a lot more rocks in the path. Besides, Europe has stopped really being a parliamentary system and turned into a bureaucracy, the greatest power base in Europe is vested in unelected bureaucrats nobody ever got to vote for.
Constitutional monarchy? No, but at present we do resemble that more than we resemble a direct democracy.
Where American political structure diverges from anything before it is I think in our determination to avoid pluralities. We are determined to have that majority and avoid consensus building and coalitions. Any consensus building here is expressed in the election of the representatives and executive. Especially the executive. And the division of powers between house and senate which in parliamentary terms would be the houses of lords and commons. These are supposed to be the checks and balances that set us apart but which have now failed. For example the house is given exclusive power of the purse by the founders in our constitution, yet they have become the weakest voice in spending in modern times, we do not even pass budgets for the next fiscal year anymore, just continuing resolutions on spending for line items and various departments. And with the Treasury being controlled by the Fed, taxation is a moot point as borrowing has pretty much overtaken tax revenues (if you combine the federal government fiscal debt with the Fed’s gifts to Wall Street you would see it is now larger than the base federal tax revenue).
Fascist corporate government? In a way we have that now also, because government does not control corporations, corporations are no longer afraid of government. Government/Fed are so afraid the Dow will have a taper tantrum that they act in concert with what the top 10% (mostly 1%) demand of them.
One thing I am sure of is the current system has reached very near the end of its useful life and it WILL change. Whether or not you and I and 300 million people not in the top 10% will like that remains to be seen, but if we do not like it there will almost certainly be war, civil or otherwise, and in the end we will probably lose. Is resistance futile? I do not know, but I think even if tried and even if it does gain something for us in the end we will regret doing it because the changes are not all going to be what we want and may be terminal. On a planet so far past its carrying capacity you would be a total idiot to think we can all be happy with what the future holds in store for us.
I find it hilarious that Trump is threatening to cut off funding to a swing State in an election year. I’m sure that’s going to be covered heavily in their local reporting. Thanks Trump!
All good doggies heed their master’s dog whistle. Roll over and beg good doggies!
Let the music be your master. Do you heed the masters call?
Here’s a prediction for the 2020 election: lowest voter turnout in history. Not from fear of covid. 2 worst candidates in history.
Every cycle is worse than the last
I think that all the early voting and mail in voting except for absentee ballots with good reason are just begging for fraud. Same with computer voting machines without a paper trail. It is IMPOSSIBLE to secure them.
Well, Colorado has had “vote by mail” since 2013.
Our former GOPer SoS worked very arduously to find fraud. He found 6 cases in the state.
Everyone in Colorado (except for a few nutjobs) supports and trusts “vote by mail”.
Technology presents a better opportunity for fraud. Paper trails are easy to audit, which is how the North Carolina fraud was detected, while hacking is tough to detect. I prefer paper since most State governments are technology dummies.
No one ever finds fraud, yet bus load after bus load go from MA to NH every election day. It can be done on the same day too.
A paper trail should be mandatory.
King Trump with imaginary powers….ease up on the bleach…
I’ve done mail in voting before. Voted for both my wife and me. At her request. Even signed her name. I agree, the vast majority of the time it doesn’t pay to cheat using mail in. Mainly because it’s easy to verify if cheating took place. But if a large pct of ballots are mail in, it would be far easier to cheat because there’s only a limited number of ballots they can test for cheating.
Data analytics show anomalies and then the paper trail provides a great audit trail. That’s how they caught the cheating Republican in North Carolina. The stats were clearly off in a heavily Democratic district so it was easy to verify the fraud. Data analytics engines make it easy to spot issues these days. Voter fraud is much more difficult to hide now because of all the tech advances and prediction models.