Monday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams said President Donald Trump is attempting to undermine mail-in voting because he knows if all eligible Americans cast their ballot “he will lose.”
Co-host Mika Brzezinski asked, “I want to start with Donald Trump tweeting in the past hour this, rigged 2020 election. ‘Millions of mail-in ballots will be printed by foreign countries and others. It will be the scandal of our times.’ He got the caps lock stuck again. Is this the scandal of our times or is the president trying to set up something here potentially to try and undermine the process?”
Abrams said, “It’s entirely his intent to undermine the process of voting because he understands and has admitted If eligible Americans cast their ballot, he will lose. We know vote by mail is a critical part of how voting has to occur in 2020 to ensure that as many people as possible can vote safely from home. It’s not only about those who can vote safely from home, as many people who can vote by mail, that reduces the number of people who will be in line. There are populations that have no choice. There are folks who are disabled, who have been displaced by COVID, who are homeless, who have language barriers. if you’re African-American or Latino your twice as likely to have your absentee ballot rejected, If you are young you’re five times likely to have your ballot rejected. Some people have no choice but to show up in person. We want vote by mail to reduce the number of people who have to be in line on election day. That keeps everyone safe. That means our democracy can work.”
She added, “We know that 34 states allow vote by mail with no excuses. That means at this moment if you want to vote by mail in 34 states, you can do it and they have the capacity to do so. What they don’t have is the ability to scale it as need as likely will be. We have 16 additional states that require an excuse, either disability, age or infirmity. Unfortunately, about four of those states are immovable on the use of COVID-19 as a justifiable infirmity to qualify you for mail-in ballots. We know the challenge is not whether you have access alone, it’s whether the states can meet the scale. We know states are crippling — they’re under a crippling debt because of the tax implications of the COVID-19 pandemic. They are cash-strapped and to scale appropriately, they need the Senate to take action. The adoption of the HEROS Act, which will provide $3.6 billion in funding for elections as well as guardrails so no matter where you live in the country, for the first time we have uniformity in how elections happen. This would also provide opportunities for communities that have too many restrictions on their access, to have those restrictions actually meet a national standard. All it takes is action by the U.S. Senate. We know Mitch McConnell recognizes he too would be in jeopardy. If we have full participation, when Americans speak right now, they’re speaking with a single voice saying, it is time for change.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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