‘Sorry, but you must not cheat in elections…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) President Donald Trump on Wednesday sent a warning shot to Democrats in two crucial battleground states that he would not allow them to use the current health crisis as cover to commit vote fraud in the November election.
After Nevada announced it would hold a mail-in primary election, Trump accused the state of creating a “great voter fraud scenario” that will encourage people to “cheat in elections.”
State of Nevada “thinks” that they can send out illegal vote by mail ballots, creating a great Voter Fraud scenario for the State and the U.S. They can’t! If they do, “I think” I can hold up funds to the State. Sorry, but you must not cheat in elections. @RussVought45 @USTreasury
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 20, 2020
Trump also threatened to withhold federal funding from Michigan after the state’s secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, announced her office would be sending absentee ballot applications to all registered voters.
In a tweet, Trump mistook Benson’s applications for actual ballots:
Breaking: Michigan sends absentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election. This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 20, 2020
Benson responded to Trump’s criticism and pointed out that the state “sent applications, not ballots.” She did not, however, address his concerns about increased voter fraud.
Hi! ?? I also have a name, it’s Jocelyn Benson. And we sent applications, not ballots. Just like my GOP colleagues in Iowa, Georgia, Nebraska and West Virginia. https://t.co/kBsu4nHvOy
— Jocelyn Benson (@JocelynBenson) May 20, 2020
Research proves that the president is right about the risk of “voter fraud,” specifically in regards to mail-in voting.
Democrats have been pushing for increased mail-in voting throughout the coronavirus pandemic to prevent large social gatherings, but their real goal “is to get as many votes into the hands of voters as possible, regardless of whether those voters are real,” according to Jason Snead, the executive director of the Honest Elections Project.
As Trump has previously noted, the vote-by-mail system is ripe for “fraud”—especially since many states refuse to maintain their already corrupt voter rolls, said Catherine Engelbrecht, president of True the Vote.
These voter rolls are filled with voters who no longer live in the state, voters who aren’t even alive anymore, and voters who aren’t legally registered.
Under the Democrats’ proposed mail-in system, these voter rolls would become extremely problematic, Engelbrecht said.