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topicnews · September 28, 2024

Republicans believe mail-in voting is a lie. The Republicans have to change that

Republicans believe mail-in voting is a lie. The Republicans have to change that

Donald Trump repeatedly sabotages his own chances of winning and forces Republicans to solve these problems for him in order to once again chase the thrill of his surprise victory in 2016.

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Donald Trump lost in 2020 in part because he attacked mail-in ballots and distrust of the system created by messaging. As such, there is an ongoing effort among Republicans to restore confidence in mail-in voting this election, hoping to show voters how viable this option is.

Four years ago, postal voting skyrocketed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump then baThe ban on mail-in voting was part of his push to undermine the results of the presidential election, which would become a key plank of his recent campaign.

“It shouldn’t be a mail-in vote,” Trump said before the 2020 election. “It should be like this: You go to a booth and show yourself proud. You don’t send it in the mail where people will pick it up – all sorts of bad things can happen.”

His lies about fraud in mail-in voting may have been a big part of why he lost in 2020 and why Republicans underperformed in 2022. Now, a full term later, the Republican Party is still trying to undo the damage Trump did by electing lies. This is because early voting has begun nationwide for the November election.

Republicans want to undo the damage Trump has caused

It’s also not surprising that 74% of Republicans believe mail-in voting fraud has been a problem in previous elections, compared to just 34% of Democrats.

Voting by mail is the most convenient option for many voters, and GOP groups recognize that convenience can help increase turnout.

This is, of course, a costly undertaking, as voters have been told by their political idol that their vote would not count if cast by mail. GOP PACs are spending millions of dollars in battleground states to restore mail-in voting’s reputation among their base.

Other groups, such as Turning Point Action’s eight-figure investment, are pursuing voter mobilization efforts more aggressively in key states.

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“As President Trump has said time and time again, voting by mail, early voting and voting on Election Day are all good options,” Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said, seemingly rewriting what the GOP nominee has done for the past four years has actually said on this topic for years.

You don’t have to go back further than August to see what the former president said.

“The elections are so messed up. We have to get back in, and we have to change everything,” Trump said at a rally. “We want to abolish postal voting.”

All of this mail-in voting effort is money that could have been spent elsewhere had Trump not undermined mail-in voting in 2020 and then further undermined the entire electoral process.

The rise of mail-in voting and why Republicans should embrace it

Although absentee voting declined in 2022 compared to the pandemic-hit 2020 election, 36% of voters still chose this method of voting. Although interest rates fell, a significant divide remained between Democrats and Republicans who voted too early.

Until 2020, postal voting consistently gave no party an advantage. Four years ago, because of Trump’s election security rhetoric, Republican voters were almost half as likely to vote by mail as their Democratic counterparts.

Mail-in voting is not popular due to partisan differences. It is popular because it is practical. It allows Americans to vote without having to travel to a polling place and also prevents an urgent personal matter from preventing someone from voting on Election Day.

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One might think that the Republican Party, whose voter base tends to be rural and often farther from the polls, would want to embrace this. These voters are more likely to vote if they have better access to voting, and they voted by mail more often in 2020 than typical voters. Half of rural polling places cover an area of ​​more than 62 square miles, forcing voters to travel long distances to vote if they do not vote by mail.

Trump is damaging part of his voter base with his election lies.

Republicans continue to pay for Trump’s failures

In the 2022 midterm elections, where Republicans underperformed, super PACs backed by Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell were forced to spend hundreds of millions to promote problematic candidates like Herschel Walker, whom Trump had endorsed. This loss ultimately cost the GOP the Senate. Meanwhile, Trump sat back and spent little of his own political budget fixing his own mistakes.

This ties into a common theme, which is that Trump really doesn’t care about Republican success, only that he remains the party’s figurehead.

Instead, he repeatedly sabotages his own chances of winning and forces Republicans to solve those problems for him in order to once again chase the thrill of his surprise victory in 2016.

As recently as this spring, Trump refused to admit that mail-in voting was a valid option, even as the Republican Party sought to promote the practice nationwide for his own benefit. At most he will admit that it is better than not voting at all, but the skeptical tone that surrounds the practice does not encourage his supporters to believe that their votes will matter.

Trump has a habit of shooting himself in the foot and the Republican Party needs to turn around and pay the hospital bill. At some point we may wake up and realize that most of these problems could be avoided if we simply voted for a different candidate. In the meantime, we will continue to lose and waste money in the process.

Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.

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