Crenshaw claims Democrats sowing doubt in elections
Congressman Dan Crenshaw ripped into Democrats during a testy interview on Monday, saying they are going too far in pushing mail-in voting, which he says is ripe for fraud and other mistakes.
“I think the Democrat party is intentionally trying to create doubt,” Crenshaw, a Republican from Houston, said during an interview aired Monday as part of the Texas Tribune Festival.
While he said he has no issue with typical absentee voting where a voter requests a ballot and it is sent to them, he said that Democrats are exag- gerating the risks of voting in person during the pandemic, and that the universal mail-in voting system they support would increase the chances of voter fraud.
Texas is one of five states that won’t accept concerns about the coronavirus as an excuse to vote by mail.
Crenshaw said he had just been in a packed grocery store, adding that if people can go there, they can vote in person, too.
“Everybody can go vote,” Crenshaw told interviewer Tim Alberta of Politico. “This is nonsense. I’m tired of this nonsense that it is not safe to vote.”
Crenshaw said he doesn’t believe Democrats have a plan for widespread fraud but said they want to pave the way for universal mail-in voting and are opening the door to fraud.
“I think they want to create doubt. Especially in this election,” Crenshaw said. “I think they want to allow people to vote who don’t vote — who shouldn’t be voting.”
His remarks come as President Donald Trump warns his supporters that Democrats are trying to rig the election. Trump has previously said that “the only way we can lose … is if cheating goes on.” He has asserted that mail-in voting is “very dangerous” and that “there is tremendous fraud involved and tremendous illegality.”
Crenshaw noted that too many elections — like his own primary victory in 2018 — are decided by very few votes. Having a couple of hundred voters who shouldn’t be voting in an election is enough to change results.
Crenshaw, a Navy veteran, in 2018 finished in the top two of the GOP primary by a 155-vote margin. He would later win the primary runoff and is now in his first term in Congress.
Crenshaw was highly critical of the media during the interview, saying most aren’t doing enough to point out the difference between absentee voting and universal mail-in voting.
He said absentee voting is where a voter requests a ballot, adding that it creates a layer of protection from fraud. He said what he’s against is states mailing ballots to every voter, something he said states such as Pennsylvania do. In response to a reporter’s question after the interview, Crenshaw acknowledged that wasn’t true and that he had mistakenly put Pennsylvania into the category. In that state, people have to request a ballot through an application.
Nine states this year are sending mail-in ballots to people who have not applied for them: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington.
But Crenshaw was also critical of Democrats trying to send applications to vote absentee to all registered voters — as Harris County Clerk Christopher Hollins wanted to do. Hollins wanted to send all 2.4 million voters in Harris County a mail ballot application, but a Texas Supreme Court ruling blocked him.
The clerk’s office already has mailed applications to voters who are 65 and older, all of whom are eligible to vote by mail under Texas law.
Crenshaw called it “totally unnecessary” and an attempt at universal mail balloting.
Crenshaw is running for reelection in the 2nd Congressional District, which runs from northeast Harris County to areas around Spring and west Houston. Democrat Sima Ladjevardian is running against Crenshaw.
“If Crenshaw wants to spend his days peddling fear and disinformation, he can go work in President Trump's communications shop and let Sima Ladjevardian fight for the health care needs of this community,” said Ladjevardian’s campaign spokesman, Dan Gottlieb.