Matt Rourke / AP
A voter casts her mail-in ballot at in a drop box in West Chester, Pa., May 28, 2020, prior to the primary election. Just over four months before Election Day, President Donald Trump is escalating his efforts to delegitimize the upcoming presidential election. Last week he made a startling, and unfounded, claim that 2020 will be “the most corrupt election in the history of our country.”
Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2020 | 2 a.m.
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Editor’s note: As he does every August, Brian Greenspun is turning over his Where I Stand column to others. Today’s guest is Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., the dean of Nevada’s congressional delegation. She represents the 1st Congressional District in the heart of Las Vegas.
When the United States was founded, only white male property owners could cast a ballot. Since that time, heroes marched, bled and died for the right to make their voices heard in U.S. elections.
As the late Congressman John Lewis said, “The vote is precious. It is almost sacred. It is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have in a democracy.”
In this country, elected officials must be held accountable to the people we represent. That’s why the U.S. conducted a presidential election even in the middle of the Civil War.
Medical experts believe that the coronavirus will still pose a serious risk to the public this November. That means we must adapt to ensure that no one has to choose between protecting their health and casting their vote. Forcing people to wait in long lines and cram into small polling places in the middle of a pandemic would violate basic values of human decency, fundamental principles of democracy and commonsense health care guidelines.
There is a better way. Mail-in voting is a tried-and-true method that has been used by U.S. troops for more than 150 years. All U.S. states now allow some form of voting by mail. Five states — including our neighbors in Utah — already conduct most elections by mail and they have some of the highest turnout rates in the country without experiencing fraud.
In the 2018 midterm elections, more than a quarter of votes across the country were cast from home. And in Nevada, our all mail-primary was just conducted with no evidence of wrongdoing. According to our Republican secretary of state, “For over a century, Nevadans … have been voting by mail with no evidence of election fraud.”
In 1923, Nevada became the first U.S. state to adopt all-mail ballots in precincts with less than 20 voters. A bill recently signed into law by Gov. Steve Sisolak carries on that proud tradition while ensuring that every Nevadan has the choice to vote by mail or in person. Under the new law, in addition to mailing a ballot to all registered voters, every county must offer adequate opportunities for in-person voting so that no single polling place is overcrowded. Clark County alone will have at least 35 polling places during early voting and 100 polling places on Election Day.
Nevertheless, President Donald Trump attacked Nevada’s expanded voting law with a series of outright lies. He said it was passed “in the darkness of night without people, without having any meetings of the public.” In reality, the bill passed a few minutes before noon after hearings by the Senate and Assembly that involved extended periods for public comment. He said the law means “you don’t have to look at signatures” which only displays his ignorance of the state’s signature-verification requirements.
Then he argued that the “post office could never handle the traffic of mail-in votes.” In fact, the Postal Service has said it had “ample capacity ... to meet projected election and political mail volume, including any additional volume that may result as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic.” If President Trump is truly concerned that the Postal Service cannot handle the upcoming election, why is he opposing additional relief funds for USPS?
Truth is Trump is not afraid of widespread fraud in the election. He is afraid of widespread voting.
Analyzing the data over the past 20 years, the director of the MIT Election Data and Science Lab found 143 confirmed cases of fraudulent voting using mail-in ballots from an estimated 250 million votes cast by mail. That’s a rate of about 0.000006%.
Trump votes by mail. His daughter, vice president, press secretary, and at least four Cabinet members do too. Yet, he thinks you should have to play by a different set of rules.
His motivations are obvious. The falsehoods from Trump and his allies are intended to scare people from voting. So is their resistance to providing relief funds to safely administer the upcoming election. They want to keep communities of color — the same communities that have been decimated by Trump’s mishandling of this pandemic — away from the ballot box.
Trump clearly cares more about his personal political interests than he does about public health. His shameful voter-suppression tactics are a direct attack on the diversity that makes Las Vegas such a special place to live in and visit. His smears are also an insult to all the women and men who have made extraordinary sacrifices to ensure the right to vote.
Of course, there is an effective way to demonstrate your opposition to Trump’s ugly display and make a change in our country. When that ballot arrives safely in your mailbox, don’t forget to cast your vote, sign it and send it back. Thanks to Nevada’s new law, you can do so safely from the comfort of your couch, and it only takes a few minutes. This could be the most important electoral decision of your lifetime.
