Washington, May 20: President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to hold up federal funds for two battleground states because they are trying to make it easier to vote during the coronavirus pandemic.
The president’s tweets targeting Michigan and Nevada were his latest salvo against voting by mail, a practice that he has publicly worried will lead so many people to vote that Republicans will lose in November.
Trump began by targeting Michigan, erroneously describing Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s announcement Tuesday that she would send absentee ballot applications to every voter in the state.
“Michigan sends absentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election,” Trump tweeted Wednesday. “This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!” Trump later made a similar threat against Nevada, which has actually sent ballots to voters for its June 9 state primary, due to the coronavirus pandemic.
A federal judge recently cleared Nevada’s decision to mail ballots, which were sent by the Republican secretary of state.
“State of Nevada ‘thinks’ that they can send out illegal vote by mail ballots, creating a great Voter Fraud scenario for the State and the U.S. They can’t! If they do, ‘I think’ I can hold up funds to the State. Sorry, but you must not cheat in elections,” Trump tweeted.
It was not immediately clear what funds Trump was referencing. The states are paying for their elections changes through coronavirus relief spending measures the president signed into law. Trump tagged his acting budget director, his chief of staff and the Treasury Department on the tweets.
Trump’s threats drew an immediate sharp response from Democrats, who alluded to impeaching the president for his threats to withhold aid from Ukraine if that country did not help his reelection effort.
“Trump has gone Ukraine on Michigan and Nevada, threatening to cut off funding for their audacity to not make voters choose between protecting their health and exercising their right to vote,” California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, a Democrat, said in a statement. “We will not allow our democracy to become a casualty of this pandemic.”
Trump has been vocal about his opposition to voting by mail, claiming the practice is ripe for fraud although there is scant evidence of widespread wrongdoing with mail-in voting. Trump himself requested a mail ballot for Florida’s GOP primary last month and he has voted absentee in previous elections.
While Republicans insist that Trump’s position on the issue is nuanced and not simply an effort to suppress Democratic votes, the president undermined those arguments Wednesday morning.
Benson noted Trump was objecting to her doing something that Republicans are also doing in other states. “‘Hi! I also have a name, it’s Jocelyn Benson. And we sent applications, not ballots. Just like my GOP colleagues in Iowa, Georgia, Nebraska and West Virginia,’” she tweeted at the president.
On Monday, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel portrayed the party’s $20 million campaign against Democratic efforts to expand mail voting as principled stance to protect the sanctity of the ballot. McDaniel said she had no objection to a system like the one Benson would announce the next day because there is a difference between sending all voters a form to request a ballot as opposed to the actual ballot. (AGENCIES)
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