Last Updated on March 28, 2020
Democrats are not letting the Coronavirus crisis go to waste politically. They are using the global pandemic to provide moral cover for their “Vote By Mail” scheme, which they hope to implement nationally to replace in-person voting at polling places.
Democrats are holding up passage of the Senate Republican economic stimulus bill in their bid to get federal Vote By Mail funding.
I’m calling on Congress to include $2 billion in election funding in the stimulus package to expand #votebymail and #earlyvoting, so Americans across the country can access the ballot box in November.
Our elections are at risk, and it’s on us to protect them.
— Senator Chris Coons (@ChrisCoons) March 23, 2020
Democrat Sens. Ron Wyden and Amy Klobuchar have introduced a national “Vote By Mail” bill that could result in all Americans, theoretically, voting in the mail in November. If the bill does not survive a potential Trump veto, Democrats are sure to continue agitating at the state level to get Vote By Mail laws before November. Oregon is currently an exclusively Vote By Mail state. While some Democrats and their supporters are calling this an “emergency” effort, the push dates back years, with Sen. Wyden proposing a national Vote By Mail bill back in 2010.
Election expert Bev Harris reported for the election integrity organization Black Box Voting: “Evolving voting methods have produced systems with significant holes in chain of custody which can call election legitimacy into question. Three voting methods which produce breaches in chain of custody are: vote-by-mail; electronic voting; and Internet voting. These methods make it difficult for the public to verify that: (a) all ballots cast were actually counted; (b) ballots counted were not altered; and (c) unauthorized votes were not added.”
Former Obama adviser Dan Pfeiffer said Democrats should exercise their negotiating power and “make it a condition for an economic rescue package,” in effect holding the economy hostage to get a partisan mechanism to make vote-counting more complicated in November. President Donald Trump is promising a massive package to stimulate the economy, but of course Democrats are looking to get their hooks into it to undermine Trump.
Federal Election Commission (FEC) commissioner Ellen Weintraub is explicitly tying the push to the hashtag #VirusFreeVoting. Democrats and their allied commentariat are laying it on thick.
https://twitter.com/EllenLWeintraub/status/1240986414625501184
Vote by mail should be standard practice no matter what, but it is a moral imperative in a pandemic. Republicans will oppose it out of muscle memory, Congressional Democrats need to make it a condition for an economic rescue package. https://t.co/o0md7UkZbR
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) March 20, 2020
Congress must provide states with the funds they need to protect the right to vote amid #COVID19, including an expansion of #VoteByMail.
Call your Senator at 202-224-3121 and tell them to include elections funding in the economic stimulus package. Our democracy is worth it. pic.twitter.com/GNVL5o9829
— Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) March 20, 2020
Shouldn’t every state be working on vote-by-mail and other mechanisms to ensure fair and democratic elections in November, rather than passing such already unnecessary and now ridiculous legislation? The Republican Party in 2020 is so bankrupt in so many ways at so many levels… https://t.co/PEtpYxAeNf
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) March 20, 2020
We should be making it easier to vote, not harder.
It shouldn't take a pandemic to force that change,
But the urgency is now crystal clear:
All states should allow no-excuse vote by mail.
Starting right now.
— Adam Schiff (@AdamSchiff) March 21, 2020
In 2019, The Council of Local Mandates in New Jersey struck down the state’s automatic Vote By Mail law as unconstitutional, meaning that voters have to specifically request an absentee ballot for every new election, and county clerks can’t be forced to automatically send them to all voters who requested them at any point in time. This might be an important case to remember during this year’s inevitable election-related lawfare. Stacey Abrams, who strained our Constitutional Republic to the limit with her post-Election Day vote-stealing tactics in the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial race, is a leading contender to be Joe Biden’s running mate.
Hillary Clinton is pushing to make “voting by mail the norm going forward.”
Clinton, who seems very interested in the 2020 presidential election despite not being a formal candidate at this time, is pushing the “vote by mail” concept in response to the worldwide Chinese Coronavirus outbreak.
Congress needs to act to make voting by mail the norm going forward, with the specifics outlined by election expert Marc Elias below to make it accessible for all. https://t.co/K2TlHIJx2d
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 18, 2020
Every voter must have the opportunity to vote by mail this year.
Senators @RonWyden and @amyklobuchar have a bill to get it done, and you can call your senators right now at (202) 224-3121 to urge them to support it. https://t.co/9ACURsoNrE
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 19, 2020
