Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is promising to push funding for a more robust vote-by-mail system in the next coronavirus stimulus package.
Pelosi made the remark on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Wednesday. The speaker cited a Senate Intelligence Committee report that confirmed that Russia used misinformation to meddle in the 2016 presidential election.
“No matter what the president says, it cannot be denied,” Pelosi said. “But it takes us to the next step. They have also told us 24/7 the Russians are still at work trying to undermine our election. That’s why we have to have an important chunk of money in this next bill that will enable us to protect the integrity of our elections, as well as enable the American people to vote by mail, especially at this time of a health danger in going to the polls.”
Democrats tried to strong-arm money for their vote-by-mail scheme in the first $2 trillion economic stimulus package that passed last month, but were rebuffed by Republicans and the president.
“The things they had in there were crazy,” Trump told Fox News at the time. “They had things — levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
Pelosi claimed that the president doesn’t like so-called vote-by-mail because he “does not have a winning message to share.”
“This is the lifeblood of our democracy, the vote,” Pelosi argued. “So, here we are trying to protect the lives of American people, the livelihoods of the American people, and also the life of our democracy. That is what we are going to do in the next bill as well.”
So, in order to protect “the life of our democracy,” we should make it easier to commit vote fraud?
On April 2, Pelosi tweeted that vote-by-mail was “essential” in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic: “Vote-by-mail is essential to protecting the future of our democracy as we confront this public health crisis. There is no legitimate argument against enacting it.”
How about the fact that it will make election fraud easier, thus making our elections less secure and less reliable? Is that a legitimate argument?
Pelosi is not the only Democrat pushing this vote-by-mail sham. In a piece for The Atlantic, former Hillary Clinton advisor Marc Elias wrote, “There is no question that voting by mail is an important part of the solution. It mitigates the problems of long lines and fosters social distancing.”
And former first lady Michelle Obama — who many are still hoping will be presumptive nominee Joe Biden’s VP pick — leads an organization called When We All Vote, which is also pushing the Democrats’ vote-by-mail plot. Mrs. Obama even claims that the scheme is non-partisan.
“There is nothing partisan about striving to live up to the promise of our country; making the democracy we all cherish more accessible; and protecting our neighbors, friends and loved ones as they participate in this cornerstone of American life,” Mrs. Obama said.
So far, Republicans have been holding strong on not allowing COVID-19 to be an excuse to trash the entire election system. In an opinion piece for Fox News, RNC chairperson Ronna McDaniel wrote, “That is why we will continue to fight and win against attempts by Democrats to use the pandemic as an excuse to circumvent election integrity.”
McDaniel added that the GOP “will not throw out our most elementary promises of democracy, because agenda-driven Democrats do not want to let a pandemic go to waste.”
McDaniel is correct. Pelosi and the Democrats are using the COVID-19 pandemic as, according to South Carolina Democrat James Clyburn, “a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit [their] vision.”
It makes no sense to combat “Russian election meddling” with this vote-by-mail scheme. It also doesn’t make sense to change the entire voting system because of a temporary situation as this pandemic surely is. You don’t “protect the integrity of our elections” by making it easier to cheat.
Photo: AP Images
James Murphy is a freelance journalist who writes on a variety of subjects, with a primary focus on the ongoing anthropogenic climate-change hoax and cultural issues. He can be reached a [email protected]
