Friday on MSNBC’s “MTP Daily,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said it was an “outrage” the Republican-led legislature refused to postpone the Wisconsin primary because of the coronavirus pandemic, “predominantly hurting the African-American community,” while President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump mailed in their ballots.
Host Chuck Todd said, “I know you’re fighting hard to try to expand mail-in voting in some form or another. Basically, to put more money in the pockets of states for the intention of expanding ballot access, access to voting for this November, whether all mail or whatever it needs to be done in order to improve that. But you have a president who clearly philosophically doesn’t believe it. He is not alone. There are a lot of Republicans who don’t believe in the mindset. And while I want to set aside some of the president’s incorrect arguments about why, is there a compromise that you can come up with that gets enough support to get more funding for mail-in balloting or does it not exist?”
Klobuchar said, “Of course there is. I just did a call yesterday with secretaries of state from across the country, Democrats and Republicans, Let’s be honest, there are varying degrees of mail-in balloting right now. Some are 98%, some states. Some are at 2%. By the way, it’s red, purple, blue states that do a lot of it. Utah does nearly all mail-in. Then you have some— it’s mixed, which is good for the argument. The Maryland governor, Republican, just ordered their primary be all mail-in balloting. So there are plenty of Republican elected official support for it because they know it’s safer. The issue is in agreement. I would say yes, get more money out to the states to do it. Some will enhance what they have. Some will be building new infrastructure. A number of them have to change the rules in a big way to make for early voting.”
She added, “But let me make one thing clear, Chuck, we’re not going to have all mail-in voting because you’ll still have states where you want to have early voting as well as the voting at home. And that means keeping polls open not just one day but 20 days back. Making sure we’re training poll workers. So we are able to practically have a combination of things across the country. Because the travesty in Wisconsin, where health care workers stood in line with their masks on next to ordinary citizens waiting and waiting and waiting, putting their health at risk just to exercise their right to vote. Predominantly hurting the African-American community while Donald Trump and the First Lady get to order their mail-in ballots, which are absentee, but mail-in from Palm Beach, Florida? That is an outrage. We cannot let that be replicated across the country.”
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