Democrats want to use mail-in ballots to steal election and deny Trump second term

WASHINGTON – In an op-ed published by Fox News, House Committee on Oversight and Reform Ranking Member James Comer (R-Ky.) and House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) outline how Democrats are pushing belated and risky changes toward all-mail balloting in key states to boost their political chances and sow uncertainty in a President Trump victory. Ranking Members Comer and Jordan highlight that the best and surest guarantee of electoral integrity is for Americans to vote in person where safe and possible.

Democrats want to use mail-in ballots to steal election and deny Trump second term

FoxNews.com
Representatives James Comer and Jim Jordan
October 2, 2020

Democrats around the country are attempting to force last-minute changes to election laws and expand universal mail-in voting procedures, under the guise of public health and safety.

But don’t be fooled. Infectious disease experts and members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force Dr. Deborah Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci have repeatedly gone on the record noting that in-person voting can be done safely with appropriate health protocols.

So if in-person voting is safe, then why are Democrats pushing belated and risky changes toward all-mail balloting in key states?

The answer is quite simple: Democrats believe that all-mail voting will boost the political chances of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and sow chaos and uncertainty in case of a victory by President Trump.

In other words, Democrats are aiming to steal the election — after the election.

A joint Republican report released by the House Judiciary and Oversight and Reform Committees last week found that last-minute shifts toward all-mail balloting and relaxed election safeguards come with serious consequences.

Democrats claim there is little evidence of fraud associated with all mail-in ballots. Don’t buy it. There is plenty of evidence of election crimes and administrative errors associated with mail-in voting.

Look no further than a recent New York congressional primary, when Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s late shift to mail-in voting led to chaos. Election officials disqualified thousands of ballots for not having timely postmarks and the election was not certified for six weeks.

All mail-in balloting is not to be confused with the time-tested absentee ballot process where a voter specifically requests, and is mailed, a ballot.

Soon, as many as 44 million Americans will automatically receive a mail-in ballot, with zero assurances the envelopes reach their intended recipient or are accounted for properly. It doesn’t take an election lawyer to know that this last-minute shift to all-mail voting will leave our electoral process ripe for potential crime and administrative errors.

Problems with mail-in voting are not new. In 2005, the bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform found mass voting by mail remains “the largest source of potential voter fraud.”

And just this month, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger revealed at least 1,000 Georgians voted twice in the primary this year.

In 2016, a former city commissioner in Texas, Guadalupe Rivera, pleaded guilty when charged with filling out mail-in ballots for voters in his race for reelection. Rivera won that race by only 16 votes. These examples underscore the consequences of all mail-in voting on a mass scale.

Democrats are also pushing for diminished safeguards around the mail-in electoral process just weeks before the election. The changes sought by Democrats put election integrity at risk and increase the risk of litigation following the election.

In Pennsylvania, the Democratic majority on the state Supreme Court extended the state’s deadline to receive mail-in ballots if mailed by Election Day and decreed that ballots without postmarks would be presumed to have been mailed by Election Day.

In Wisconsin, Michigan, and elsewhere, Democrats want to extend deadlines for mail-in ballots to be counted after the election. In other states, Democrats seek to weaken witness and notary measures to ensure the person returning the ballot is the actual voter.

These last-minute Democratic changes are especially risky as states move toward providing prepaid return postage of mail-in ballots. The U.S. Postal Service typically does not postmark prepaid mail and, although it claims to have a policy to do so for election-related mail, the Postal Service failed to postmark thousands of ballots in a contested New York congressional primary.

A similar Postal Service error in November could result in massive disenfranchisement and litigation. Recently, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee voted down a proposal to increase penalties for tampering with a postmark on a 2020 ballot, showing they are not interested in ensuring a secure and fair election.

Widespread mail-in balloting enables Democrats to expand their weaponized voting scheme called “ballot harvesting.” Ballot harvesting allows far-left activists to solicit and collect entire batches of ballots from 2020 voters.

We’ve seen this tactic before. Ballot harvesting led to Democrats eking out victories in several 2018 congressional races, literally weeks after Election Day. America cannot afford lingering uncertainty about election results or fraudulent activity, which would only bring confusion, distrust, inaccuracy, and delay in the final outcome.

The best and surest guarantee of electoral integrity is for Americans to vote in person where safe and possible. Voting at a dedicated site comes with knowledgeable poll workers, identity verification, and secure ballot submission practices. These safeguards will minimize any delay in election results and ensure the integrity of the outcome.

But for Democrats, the prospect of removing President Trump from office — by any means necessary and by stealing the election after the election — outweigh their commitment to election integrity.

Rep. Jim Jordan is a Republican representing Ohio in the U.S. House of Representatives and is ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee.

Representative James Comer (R-Ky.) is the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. You can follow him on Twitter @RepJamesComer.