Why President Trump must ban mail-in ballots nationwide to ensure
the integrity of the 2020 elections. Here's how, and proof he can!
The President has recognized the danger of mail-in ballots and the potential they have to corrupt our elections. This is a positive development, but now he must follow through on this by taking action to address the threat.
Republicans should fight very hard when it comes to state wide mail-in voting. Democrats are clamoring for it. Tremendous potential for voter fraud, and for whatever reason, doesn’t work out well for Republicans. @foxandfriends
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 8, 2020
Mail-in ballots have never been tried on the scale proposed by democrats, and this is in spite of democrats previously warning about the dangers of such a method. [1]
Yet now they want most votes to be cast by mail, then handled by a postal system that barely functions as it is even in less hectic times. This is because they know votes can be stolen or lost this way, and they plan on doing exactly that. Their plan is two-fold. Stuff ballot boxes with fraudulent votes for Biden, or at the very least cast doubt on the integrity of the election to delegitimize Trump's probable victory.
Unfortunately, Trump walked into the democrats' shutdown trap when he should have invoked the Interstate Commerce Clause to keep all businesses open. Trump must not allow himself to be trapped in the next democrat smear job as well. Even without President Trump doing anything to stop this sabotage effort the democrats are already accusing him of the action they are guilty of, which is trying to usurp the voters.
They think the President can't do anything about it because holding elections is a process left up to the states, but this is merely tradition. In a time when tradition has been thrown out the window, new solutions are needed to solve new problems. While states have authority over how elections are held, the method of voting, and who may vote or not vote, there are certain federal guidelines and requirements that even the states and localities must follow. The primary responsibility of the state is to ensure the election is open to all who are eligible and that no legal voter is disenfranchised. Though this responsibility hasn't been clearly defined, I would contend that this includes ensuring fraudulent votes are not counted, as doing so would disenfranchise legal voters by cancelling out their votes.
But even as things stand now, if the state adopts a method of voting that has not been tested and is not secure, then it is in violation of its responsibility to the citizens of their state. Keep in mind, it is NOT the responsibility of the citizens to prove that a state's new method of voting is not secure. The onus is on the state to prove that their method of voting is secure. Attorney General Barr has already pointed out that mail-in states are playing with fire because mail-in have never been conducted on this large of a scale. [2]
Not only has no state proven that it can handle a massive influx of mail-in ballots, certain states have proven that they can't.
Thousands Of Mail-In Ballots Rejected For Tardiness. [3]
Roughly 800 Mail-in Ballots Not Counted, Triggering Do-Over. [4]
Even Absentee Ballots Are Prone to Errors. [5]
Any attempt to institute this in any state, even one with a past history of mail-in voting, is therefore illegal. Note that states with prior mail-in ballot procedures did not process most votes this way. Rather it was just a fraction of the overall vote statewide, which made those mail-ins more manageable both for the post offices and for the election officials who verify and count the ballots.
But now these systems face being overwhelmed. Liberals know this, which is why they have suggested that mail-in ballots be counted even after election night, and some up to two weeks after! This is a blatant attempt to steal the election by stuffing the mailbox, which would become the new ballot box. Worse yet, democrats would know how many fake votes they needed in order to steal the election in any given swing-state. This was how Al Franken stole his election. [6] Same with Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona. [7] And of course once the desired result for the democrat is in, there will be NO QUESTIONING of the vote totals regardless of their irregularities. See the Roy Moore case. [8] That's if RINOs even contest it. Most re-puke-lickins will just roll over and crumble into dust. That's why President Trump must be the one to lead the effort to secure the votes of the American people.
0. Before he does anything, President Trump MUST have a team of hand-picked experts research the issues and gather irrefutable facts that mail-in voting is not secure. This is to justify his executive actions to any court that might try to stop him. We've seen how much Roberts likes to invoke "proper procedure" whenever it suits him, like on the citizenship question on the census.
1. Make a national announcement that all mail-in ballots will be declared null and void for being susceptible to fraud and thus spoiled. Explain why these ballots are not secure and why they can't be accepted as valid.
2. Make it known that he will instruct the postal service to deposit any and all such ballots in the nearest garbage receptacle. Even if President Trump can't actually pull this off, this will at least discourage voters from using the mail-in ballot scam.
3. Assure the American voters that this nullification need not be a concern to them, as they will still be able to vote in person on election day. Which is how it should be.
4. Encourage people to vote in person, and use statements from Fauci and Birx to confirm that in-person voting is safe and carries little to no risk of contracting COVID-19. [9] Perhaps even suggest some mitigation options, such as bringing your own ink pen with you to fill out the voter card and fill in the ballot (if it's a paper ballot that requires ink). Or to wear gloves for those who have to pull levers or use hold-punchers or a stylus for touchscreens.
5. Announce support for alternatives such as secure absentee voting, and the expansion of polling places and booths in order to reduce lines. Polling places can also be divided by first letters of last names, and the voting rolls properly divided among them to ensure no one can vote twice. This will allow voting places to observe any social distancing guidelines they want, while also keeping the wait times low.
6. Announce the appointment of challengers to observe the voting places to ensure these methods are properly implemented and that voting machines are functioning correctly. This includes early testing of any electronic voting machines
The Poll Tax, and Presidential Authority
I won't go into the entire history of the Poll Tax, but essentially it was the democrat attempt to disenfranchise poor, and mainly black citizens at the time, from voting. It was done in response to the 15th Amendment granting the right to vote to black Americans. Hmm, see any parallels to today?
Long story short, charging a poll tax is unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court ruled in Virginia v. Harper that even a modest poll tax is illegal because tying the right to vote to any monetary status infringes on that right.
So just HOW MUCH was the poll tax? It varied from state to state, but in Massachusetts it was highest at $3, which today would be about $20. In other states it was around $1, so that would be $8 today. So if the Supreme Court ruled that even a measly $8 represented an undue burden on the right to vote, how much more of an infringement would it be to impose a system of voting that results in your vote being lost, stolen, altered, or even just overridden with fraudulent votes? At least under a poll tax you could have your vote counted. Under mail-in voting you might not have it counted at all, or worse, altered. Or otherwise nullified by a fraudulent ballot. And worst of all, you wouldn't KNOW if your vote was counted or not.
And keep in mind, the Supreme Court ruled that NO monetary charge could be demanded of voters. Not even a single cent. That is how serious the courts look at the privilege of voting, and how even an insignificant burden is considered an infringement. This is why the President has full authority to ban mail-in voting nationwide. He would be standing on solid legal ground, and he would be enforcing Constitutional protections on The People's votes. If charging a penny is an unacceptable burden on a voter, then obscuring a voter's ballot within a dubious delivery method most certainly is since it doesn't even carry the assurance that the vote was counted. To do nothing, or to just talk about how unfair it all is, would be to allow the democrats to either steal, or at least cast serious doubt on the voting process and destroy the American people's faith in our elections.
Afterword
For those who may not know (like a female who cleans the insides of houses in The Great Lakes State), absentee voting is not the same as mail-in voting. With absentee voting, though this varies by state, you must show up in person and request an absentee ballot. You must give a reason why you cannot appear on election day to vote in person. You must also provide identification.
Mail in voting is fraught with problems. The first line of problems is actually in who receives the mail-in ballots. Some ballots are appearing at the wrong residences. If someone who lived there years before has moved, then the current resident could receive that person's ballot, which could then be forged. Some of these mail-ins do not require signatures. Ballots for deceased citizens may also appear at their former residence. Some people are even receiving duplicate ballots.
The next line of problems is in how a mail-in ballot is sent out. Some parts of the country have what are known as ballot harvesters. People who go out, knock on doors, and collect people's ballots with the empty promise of delivering them securely on the voter's behalf. Many voters actually do fall for this, and the harvesters are then free to tamper with or even discard such ballots in secrecy.
Next, even if the voter mails the ballot in, that ballot could get lost in the postal system even on a good day. Now consider that the postal system will be overwhelmed with an influx of these ballots.
Even if these ballots reach their proper destination, those who verify the ballots can consider them spoiled if they aren't properly filled out. Such mistakes could easily be corrected if the citizen were voting in person, but since it's a mail-in ballot there's no way to contact the citizen to let them know of the error and that their ballot needs to be recast if they want to be counted. As a result, the ballot is discarded. This will happen to MANY mail-in ballots, as it has happened to many of them already in previous primaries and general elections. [10] Democrats will point to those spoiled ballots and cry "SUPPRESSION" and "DISENFRANCHISEMENT". This will be their method of smearing Trump's reelection as illegitimate, and they'll accuse him of stealing the election.
And of course there's the possibility that these votes won't even be counted in time. Some states might not have a published result until weeks after election night, especially if they intentionally drag their feet like those in Michigan did back in 2016 because they didn't want to be the ones to put Trump at the magic number of 270. [11] This is to say nothing of the potential for fake ballots to be filled out and stuffed into the ballot box. As an aside, I encourage everyone to vote in person, and take the mail-in ballot request form with you to prove that you did not vote by mail just in case they have you down as having voted by mail already. Maybe I'm paranoid, but how do I know someone didn't fill out a fake mail-in ballot with my address?
So President Trump must put a stop to this here and now before the problem becomes too large or the hour too short to allow action. Institute these protections now so that voters can know the rules ahead of time, and that absentee or in-person voting are the only secure ways of participating in this crucial election. We must have trust in our voting system and have peace of mind that only our valid votes have been properly counted.
Believe it!
Further Reading:
Both political parties agree mail-in voting is open to fraud.
Mail-ins could delay naming president.
How mail-in can be exploited.