Donald Trump attacks ‘ballot harvesting’ voter fraud – even though last major case involved a REPUBLICAN
- President Trump held down the caps lock as he complained about voter fraud Tuesday on Twitter
- ‘GET RID OF BALLOT HARVESTING, IT IS RAMPANT WITH FRAUD. THE USA MUST HAVE VOTER I.D., THE ONLY WAY TO GET AN HONEST COUNT!’ he wrote
- Trump was likely reacting to the loss of a Wisconsin Republican state Supreme Court judge, who the president endorsed days before the election
- The progressive Democrat in the race beat incumbent Daniel Kelly by more than 10 points
- That candidate, Jill Karofsky, was helped by her party’s effort to have Wisconsin voters vote absentee amid the coronavirus pandemic
- There’s no evidence of ‘ballot harvesting’ in Wisconsin, though a GOP political operative was indicted on ballot tampering charges in North Carolina last year
- Learn more about how to help people impacted by COVID
President Trump kept the caps lock on through a Tuesday tirade about voter fraud, likely sparked by the loss of Wisconsin Republican state Supreme Court judge Daniel Kelly.
‘GET RID OF BALLOT HARVESTING, IT IS RAMPANT WITH FRAUD. THE USA MUST HAVE VOTER I.D., THE ONLY WAY TO GET AN HONEST COUNT!’ Trump tweeted.
What Trump was likely suggesting is that progressive Jill Karofsky’s impressive 10.6 point win over Kelly, a conservative incumbent, was due to cheating, as Democrats focused on absentee balloting efforts to prevent voters from having to go to polls to be possibly exposed to coronavirus.
‘Ballot harvesting,’ is the collecting and submitting of absentee or mail-in ballots by individuals other than the voter, with the concern being that the votes could be tampered with.
The last ballot harvesting scandal to rock the United States came at the hands of the Republican Party in 2018, in a Congressional race for North Carolina’s 9th District.
President Trump want on an all-caps tear about election fraud Tuesday, after a conservative he backed in Wisconsin’s election last week lost badly to a progressive challenger, with Democrats in the state pushing voters to vote absentee amid the coronavirus pandemic
The president went on a tirade about ballot harvesting, which was likely sparked by the loss of conservative judge Daniel Kelly in Wisconsin, who lost by over 10 points to a Democratic challenger
Republican Mark Harris was accused of being assisted by a GOP operative named McCrae Dowless, who led a ballot harvesting effort targeting elderly black voters in rural areas.
Dowless was indicted in early 2019 on multiple charges of illegal ballot handling.
The election results, which saw Harris beat Democrat Dan McCready by 905, were thrown out by the state’s election board and a new election to fill the seat took place.
There’s no evidence that fraud occurred in Wisconsin, though some voters reported not receiving absentee ballots on time, and some of the ballots came back to election officials without the required postmark.
Still, Trump has tried to create the narrative that widespread mail-in voting would be rife with fraud and would hurt Republicans on the ballot.
The issue came up because of the Wisconsin primary and because Congressional Democrats have been pushing federal election reforms to allow more mail-in balloting in case the coronavirus reappears in the fall and wreaks havoc on the November general election.
In Wisconson, the state GOP pushed to have in-person voting last Tuesday because they thought it would help Kelly’s chances of winning re-election.
With the Democratic presidential nomination all but settled and voters fearing coronavirus spread, Republicans in the state thought Kelly had a good chance if the election went on as planned.
Even early absentee ballots seemed to favor Kelly, with Republicans then growing suspicious when the state’s Democratic Gov. Tony Evers called for a last-minute delay.
The chief doubter was Trump, who said from the White House podium that Evers was trying to interfere with his endorsement of Kelly and wasn’t trying to delay voting over coronavirus concerns.
‘In Wisconsin what happened is, I, through social media, put out a very strong endorsement of a Republican conservative judge, who’s an excellent brilliant judge, he’s a justice,’ Trump said the Friday before the election. ‘And I hear what happened is his poll numbers went through the roof and because of that I think they delayed the election,’ Trump alleged.
At the same press conference, Trump said he was against Democrats’ efforts to have widespread mail-in voting in November.
‘No, because I think a lot of people cheat with mail-in voting,’ Trump said, though assured the reporters in the room that the general election would still happen on November 3.