Trump’s rants about mail-in voting and reality
Disrupt. Distort. Distract.
President Trump continues to try to delegitimize the most important election in American history — an election that polls show he’s likely to lose.
His latest reckless rants, at a White House briefing Thursday, are designed to plant the notion in the minds of conscientious U.S. citizens that the election is “a mess” because of voting by mail.
“The Democrats love it and Republicans hate it,” Trump said of voting by mail (not true). “We all agree that absentee voting is good. Mail ballots will lead to the greatest fraud” (also not true).
As Trump continues to sow doubt, election supervisors across Florida are managing what’s expected to be the largest number of mail-in ballots for a primary in state history. In reality, supervisors are using social media to remind voters of built-in safeguards that protect everyone’s vote.
The canvassing or processing of mail ballots is underway in most counties. Any voter can track the status of their mail ballot on their county’s election website. In some counties, voters can sign up for text messages or emails to receive confirmation. Drop boxes at elections offices and early voting sites allow voters to deliver their mail ballots in person.
That’s the Florida reality. But Trump continues to make a phony distinction between mail-in voting and absentee voting when they are the same thing. “We’re in favor of absentee, but it’s much different,” he said. Wrong.
Florida, run by Republicans since 1998, eliminated the outdated word “absentee” from state laws in 2016 because voters no longer needed to provide an excuse to vote by mail. Every legislator in both parties voted for it (SB 112).
Trump, now registered to vote in Palm Beach County, said he will vote absentee, not by mail. That’s laughable. Palm Beach will mail his ballot to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. If Trump knew the reality of how elections are run in his home state, he wouldn’t say such nonsensical things.
The president repeated his baseless allegations on the day America honored the memory of Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a civil rights leader whose funeral was Thursday. Lewis nearly died in 1965 when he was beaten by police while fighting for the right to vote.
“The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society,” Lewis wrote in an op-ed column for The New York Times shortly before he died.
Trump a favorite bogeyman in Broward
Speaking of Trump, he’s the favorite blunt instrument of political operatives to discredit opponents. Both leading Democratic candidates for Broward sheriff, Gregory Tony and Scott Israel, are flooding mailboxes with mail pieces that implausibly try to link each other to Trump.
But none is more misleading than what has surfaced in the Democratic primary for the District 33 state Senate seat in central Broward.
A shadowy Tallahassee political action committee with the perversely inaccurate name of “Progressives,” organized by Republicans and financed with secret dark money, sent a mail piece to Black households linking liberal Sen. Perry Thurston to Trump.
Thurston, the mailing claims, has voted with Republicans 807 times since 2017, including for two Republican Senate presidents. ”Why doesn’t he just switch parties and become a Republican?” the mailing asks voters.
The mailing represents all that’s wrong with the campaign finance system in Florida: A phony attack by a shadow group paid with mystery money and zero accountability.
The fact is, most floor votes in Tallahassee are unanimous or nearly so. Many bills are not controversial because they’re inconsequential. Partisan differences are worked out in committees. A typical bill renames a bridge or makes minor changes to programs.
A better measure of Thurston’s voting record is the Florida Chamber of Commerce report card that tracks votes on its key issues, most of which are pro-business. Most Republicans get As. Thurston got a D this session and the other four Broward senators, all Democrats, got Bs or Cs.
Thurston voted for the past two Senate presidents, as did his fellow Democrats, as a goodwill gesture. Republicans had a majority.
“Progressives” is a PAC registered to William Stafford Jones, a GOP operative from Gainesville, who did not respond to email or phone messages. The PAC’s money came from other PACs with ties to Republican operatives or business groups.
Thurston, the best-known candidate in his four-person Senate race, is in line to be the Senate Democratic leader in 2022. If he’s reelected, his first priority should be to change a system that allows dark money mailings like this one.
What makes the message more bizarre is that Thurston and his three rivals are the only candidates for this Senate seat. That makes the primary open to all voters, including independents and Republicans, most of whom like Trump.
“That’s a hell of a way to get Republicans to vote against me,” Thurston said.