Pelosi Pushes Vote-by-Mail: ‘Every Person Registered to Vote Should Receive a Ballot’

Friday on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said “much more than” the initial $400 million for a vote-by-mail initiative will be included in the next coronavirus stimulus bill to enable “every person registered to vote” to receive a ballot at home.

When asked about President Donald Trump not favoring bailout funding for the post office, Pelosi said, “The post office has over 90 percent favorability among the American people. They depend on the post office as a public institution. Seniors now are getting — they have always been getting their medicine by mail for a long time now and now even more urgently. People are buying things that are telemarketing and the rest, and they’re being delivered by the post office. So at this time, any time, it’s a bad idea. It’s what they’re about, privatization, privatization, privatization. Let someone else go make money off someone that should be a public service for the American people. We will have to have that fight. We tried to get funding for the post office in the CARES one bill. We had some money in a bipartisan way, but the president I understand personally rejected it.”

She continued, “Let me tell you another reason he might be against it. We have to save the lives and livelihood of the American people. We also have to save our liberty, the life of our democracy. Voting by mail is central to this in any event, but at the time of the coronavirus, very essential. We had $400 million in CARES one. We have to have much more than that in CARES two so people can vote by mail.”

She added, “When the Supreme Court acting like party hacks said that the state of Wisconsin had to vote on that day and limited the importance of voting by mail, they were doing a Republican agenda, but the fact is is that having those people vote at that time was as if we invited them all to the Mardi Gras, probably caused more infections. People were standing in long for a very long time, keeping social distancing but nonetheless having to be out when they should be home. This issue of vote-by-mail and also saying every person registered to vote should receive a ballot and that we should have same-day registration for those who have not registered to vote. Opening the process, this is what our country is about, the vote, the sacred right to vote. I’m a former state chair of the party, and our purpose was always to remove obstacles for participation, whether they were Democrats, Republicans, independents, or whatever they were.”

Follow Pam Key On Twitter @pamkeyNEN