House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is still using the COVID-19 crisis to push for nationwide voting-by-mail, claiming that to do otherwise would equal voter suppression.
"We have a different value system about what voting means to democracy," Pelosi said in a telephone interview with reporters. "Clearly, we want to remove all obstacles to participation."
But President Trump knows it would lead to widespread fraud.
"Republicans should fight very hard when it comes to state wide mail-in voting," he tweeted last week. "Democrats are clamoring for it. Tremendous potential for voter fraud, and for whatever reason, doesn't work out well for Republicans."
The problem with mail-in voting is that there's no way to determine whether the person casting the ballot is the person he claims to be.
Three years ago Judicial Watch's Election Integrity Project released a report finding that there were more registered voters in the United States than there were living adults — 3.5 million more.
As Deroy Murdock observed in National Review, "Such staggering inaccuracy is an engraved invitation to voter fraud."
Judicial Watch founder Tom Fitton said that the president "is right to be concerned about voter fraud. My guess is Hillary Clinton got about 1.1 million illegal votes from alien voters. And I estimate 900,000 alien illegal voted in 2018."
In addition to vote-by-mail, Democratic lawmakers want states to utilize "ballot harvesting" during elections — the practice of workers or volunteers collecting absentee ballots from voters and dropping them off at an election office.
California uses both mail-in-voting and ballot harvesting. And how does that work out for them?
Former House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said that not only do California's election laws make it susceptible to fraud, but that the "bizarre" results from the 2018 midterms suggest that fraud may have been implemented.
In response, California's secretary of state, Alex Padilla, shot back, "in California we make sure every ballot is properly counted and accounted for. That's not 'bizarre,' that's DEMOCRACY."
Well, no, it's "bizarre." Election officials can't check the identification of a ballot that's been mailed in, and can't even tell of the voter is still alive. The ballot may have been cast by a relative of a deceased voter.
At least six California GOP congressional candidates were easily winning their races on election night 2018, only to discover days and even weeks later that they lost by a hair to their Democratic opponent.
For example, in California's 39th congressional district, Republican Young Kim, a Korean American, had captured a healthy 57% of the vote by midnight of the day of the election. Three weeks later, after mail-in and harvested votes were brought in and counted, she lost 48%-51%.
Nonetheless, former GOP Chairman Michael Steele disputed Trump's claim that "a lot of people cheat" in jurisdictions where mail-in voting is conducted. Security expert and Fox News contributor Jim Hanson gave Steele an object lesson.
"Voter registration rolls in Orange Cty CA show dozens of people list their physical address as a dog park," he tweeted. "But their ballots all went to the same PO box in Sacramento. Hmmm. Wake up Mike."
Despite the fraud that vote-by-mail makes possible, without surprise mainstream news outlets are siding with the Democratic Party on the issue.
The Washington Post reported that "Trump's attack on vote-by-mail is an attack on democracy."
CNN published a "Fact check" that claimed "Trump lies about voter fraud while states, CDC encourage voting-by-mail as pandemic-friendly option."
The Atlantic claimed that "The Most Important 2020 States Already Have Vote by Mail." By that standard they could say that cannibalism is OK because the world's most important indigenous tribes still practice it.
The New York Times got caught engaging in a little hypocrisy to make its case. It reported that "Falsehoods And Facts On Voting By Mail – Trump Claims High Risk Of Fraud. He's Wrong."
But as NewsBusters' Clay Waters reported over the weekend, this is an about-face from the Times' position in 2012, when it reported that "Error and Fraud at Issue as Absentee Voting Rises"
And finally, last week activist and freelance writer Marisa Kabas made the case that vote-by-mail can promote widespread fraud — although that wasn't her intention.
"The only confirmed large scale vote-by-mail fraud was done by Republicans in North Carolina," she claimed, then added, "Pass it on."
Gallup released the results of a poll in February revealing a lack of trust in U.S. elections. A dismal 40% of registered voters said that they had confidence that elections are fair and open.
If we're going to restore voter confidence, we have to ensure that the person casting each ballot is the person he claims to be. Mail-in votes and ballot harvesting won't do it; presenting government-issued photo ID as a prerequisite to vote will.
Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to BizPac Review and Liberty Unyielding. He is also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and an enthusiastic Second Amendment supporter, who can often be found honing his skills at the range. To read more of his reports — Click Here Now.