President Trump’s tweeted suggestion to delay the Nov. 3 election is a nonstarter — that decision is up to Congress, and the Democratic-controlled House would never go for it.
But while Trump has no basis to claim that the widespread mail balloting that will be needed during the coronavirus pandemic will be tainted, there is a troubling possibility that voting in several key states will be chaotic.
Of course, that’s partly due to the president’s own ceaseless effort to undermine the validity of absentee ballots as a “rigged” system that would benefit Democrats. What’s more, neither he nor other Republicans have supported nearly $4 billion in election system aid included in a coronavirus stimulus bill that the House passed in May.
Instead, Trump continued his election sabotage Thursday, tweeting that “with Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???”
With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020
California, which has been moving toward all-mail elections for several years, is in relatively good shape to handle the increased number of people voting by mail because of the coronavirus pandemic. The state will mail ballots to every active voter for the fall election.
But the battleground states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, New Hampshire and Florida received a grade of “C” or worse in terms of their readiness to vote in a pandemic, according to a nationwide study this month by the Brookings Institution.
Michigan, a state that Trump won in 2016 but where Biden is leading in polls this year, received a “B” for committing to mail every voter a ballot. Colorado, a battleground state that also hosts a U.S. Senate race that Democrats hope to flip, and California are among the six states and the District of Columbia to receive an “A” for readiness from Brookings.
Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia gubernatorial candidate who has been focused on ensuring ballot access in 15 battleground states through her organization Fair Fight, is worried about whether states will be able to ensure that people can vote and have their vote counted.
“I think we’re 50-50,” Abrams told The Chronicle’s “It’s All Political” podcast.
Abrams said many states have the capacity to make it work, “but that’s going to take attention, and it’s going to take perseverance, and most importantly it’s going to take making sure that voters understand their rights and they know their part in pushing back against the voter suppression that has become de rigueur for the Republicans.”
Trump has continually said that vote-by-mail is replete with fraud. In April he tweeted that “Absentee Ballots are a great way to vote for the many senior citizens, military, and others who can’t get to the polls on Election Day. These ballots are very different from 100% Mail-In Voting, which is ‘RIPE for FRAUD,’ and shouldn’t be allowed.”
That is wrong in two ways. Absentee ballots are mail-in ballots — there’s no difference — and incidents of fraud are exceedingly rare, said Rick Hasen, an election expert who is a professor political science at UC Irvine. Trump himself has voted by mail.
Regardless, Trump’s repeated falsehoods about the safety of voting has an effect, Abrams said.
“My concern is that he’s lying,” Abrams told The Chronicle. “And my fear is that people believe him.”
Abrams said 34 states allow voters to cast ballots by mail without having to offer a reason. But the other 16 states require a reason, such as being elderly or disabled.
And some states have had issues with voter suppression, including Abrams’ native Georgia.
The Associated Press reported weeks before the 2018 election for governor in which Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp ultimately defeated Abrams that 53,000 voter registrations were on hold in Kemp’ office because they violated the state’s “exact match” verification process. Under that policy, information on voter applications must exactly match information on file with the Georgia Department of Driver Services or the Social Security Administration.
The AP reported that even though Georgia’s population was 32% Black, “the list of voter registrations on hold in the office is nearly 70% Black.”
“The racist intent in this is so clear,” Robert Greenwald, a filmmaker who produced “Suppressed: The Fight to Vote” about the Georgia election, told The Chronicle, “because (the suppression) is only in the African American districts.”
While states may have challenges this fall, there seems to be little chance that Trump will be able to delay the election. Even his fellow Republicans belittled the idea Thursday.
Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio noted that Americans have voted during the Civil War, two World Wars, the Great Depression and after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“Since 1845 we’ve had an election on the first Tuesday after November first and we’re going to have one again this year,” Rubio said. “We’re going to have an election, it’s going to be legitimate, it’s going to be credible, it’s going to be the same as it’s always been.”
Besides, said Rep. Zoe Loftren, the San Jose Democrat who chairs the Committee on House Administration — the panel charged with oversight of federal elections — “only Congress can change the date of our elections.”
“And under no circumstances will we consider doing so to accommodate the president’s inept and haphazard response to the coronavirus pandemic, or give credence to the lies and misinformation he spreads regarding the manner in which Americans can safely and securely cast their ballots,” Lofgren said.
Hasen, the election expert, said Trump’s Twitter proposal Thursday was more about distracting voters from the latest grim economic news than his concerns about election law.
On Thursday, the Labor Department reported that 1.4 million Americans filed for unemployment this week, bringing the total to more than 54 million Americans since the onset of the pandemic. Also on Thursday, the Commerce Department reported that the nation’s gross domestic product — the amount of goods and services the country produces — tumbled 9.5% in the second quarter of the year, another sign that the economy is free-falling into a recession.
Voters are pinning the blame on Trump, as he is trailing presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden in national polls and across most battleground states.
There’s no question in my mind that a trump tweeted about potentially delaying the election to distract from these awful economic numbers. But that doesn’t mean he won’t try shenanigans related to the election and he’s already undermining its legitimacy. https://t.co/nULk40dDdm
— Rick Hasen (@rickhasen) July 30, 2020
“There’s no question in my mind that Trump tweeted about potentially delaying the election to distract from these awful economic numbers,” Hasen, author of ”Election Meltdown: Dirty Tricks, Distrust, and the Threat to American Democracy,” tweeted Thursday. “But that doesn’t mean he won’t try shenanigans related to the election and he’s already undermining its legitimacy.”
Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicle’s senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli
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Trump can’t delay the election. But many states are unprepared for this year’s changes - San Francisco Chronicle
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