Trump’s latest vote-by-mail claim called ‘nonsense’
Experts: Security steps in place to thwart foreign interference in elections
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump delivered a new line of attack Monday in his fight against allowing more Americans to vote by mail during the November election, warning – without evidence – that it could lead to “foreign countries” printing ballots to undermine results.
Voting experts and election officials swiftly disputed the claim, characterizing the warning as a bogus conspiracy and pointing to safeguards that states use to protect the authenticity of absentee ballots and envelopes.
In all caps, Trump tweeted: “RIGGED 2020 ELECTION: MILLIONS OF MAILIN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES, AND OTHERS. IT WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES!”
Trump echoed a claim that Attorney General William Barr made during an interview on Fox News on Sunday when he said vote-by-mail “absolutely opens the floodgates to fraud.”
Barr said: “Right now, a foreign country could print up tens of thousands of counterfeit ballots, and it’d be very hard for us to detect which was the right and which was the wrong ballot. So, I think it can – it can upset and undercut the confidence in the integrity of our elections. If anything, we should tighten them up right now.”
Lawrence Norden, director of the Election Reform Program for the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York School of Law, called the claim “nonsense.”
“It doesn’t make any sense as an attack against our election system,” he said. “It would be too easy to catch. You just wouldn’t be able to do it. There’s obviously other ways – cyber warfare – of attacking election infrastructure. I think we have to be worried about them. But forging mail ballots is not a serious threat.”
Norden said the “most obvious” reason foreign interference over vote-bymail isn’t practical is that mail-in ballots must be returned in a secrecy envelope created by local election authorities. He said the envelopes are bar-coded in many states with a unique identifier that ties the ballot to the voter.
He said the secrecy envelopes also require personal information that only the voter should have – the last four digits of a voter’s Social Security number and the voter’s signature. Mail ballots rely on signature-verification tools to check voter authenticity.
It would also be “very difficult” to forge a ballot that meets all the specification required to be read by a particular voting machine, which vary by jurisdiction, he said.
“In other words, there are security measures in place that make the kind of scheme he’s imagining impossible,” Norden said.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a message from USA TODAY seeking further clarification about Trump’s claim.
Ellen Weintraub, a Democratic member of the Federal Election Commission, slammed Trump’s claim: “Here’s the truth: Election administrators say it’s virtually impossible for a foreign country to counterfeit ballots and get away with it.There is no basis for the conspiracy theory that #VoteByMail will corrupt the election.”
She linked to a recent Washington Post story that quoted current and former election administrators who said it would be virtually impossible for foreign countries to print and mail in absentee ballots.
“There is zero chance” that a foreign country could successfully counterfeit and submit mail ballots in Colorado, Judd Choate, the state’s elections chief, told the Washington Post. Colorado is one of five states where all voters are able to cast ballots by mail.
Tom Ridge, former Republican governor of Pennsylvania and Homeland Security Secretary, accused Trump of trying to scare Americans from voting.
“While absentee ballots are safe, secure, and do not benefit one party over another, this dangerous rhetoric does,” said Ridge, who co-chairs the newly formed VoteSafe, which supports expanding vote-by-mail. “Scaring his own voters away from a proven method that dates back to the Civil War will have a toll on Republicans up and down the ballot.”
Democrats, including presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden, are pushing for the expansion of vote-bymail options to ensure voter access during the coronavirus pandemic. But Trump and the Republican National Committee oppose the efforts, arguing that expanded vote-by-mail would hurt Republican candidates and lead to voter fraud.
A study by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice at the New York School of Law found incidents of overall voter fraud “extraordinarily rare.”
Trump’s warning about foreign influence comes after Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump, according to U.S. intelligence officials. They’ve warned that the U.S. could be susceptible to another cyberattack ahead of the 2020 election. Special counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence of a conspiracy between Trump and Russia.
John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, accused Trump of seeking help from China to help his chances to win the 2020 election. In his new book, he said Trump encouraged China President Xi Jinping and asked for China to purchase American soybeans and wheat because aiding American farmers would help him win important swing states.