The boys who cried fraud struggle to reassure voters of elections' legitimacy

When Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams sent postcards to voters encouraging them to vote by mail in the state’s June 23 primary, Republicans who received the mailings went ballistic. After years of listening to the GOP’s false claims that mail-in elections were fraudulent, voters accused him of rigging the election against Republicans.

“I’ve gotten my head taken off for that,” Adams told National Public Radio.

But don’t feel sorry for him. This is a monster he helped create. Adams, a Republican, hammered home the GOP’s lies about mail balloting while campaigning for office last year.

Now, he and Republican officials in other states are facing the consequences of their misinformation campaign. Their efforts to encourage mail-in voting, which would not only help turnout but would protect voters from exposure to the coronavirus, are being met with suspicion and hostility by the voters they hoodwinked to get elected.

“It’s a sensitive issue that’s probably on me, because I talked about it in my campaign,” Adams admitted. “It’s my job now to calm people’s fears.”

Best of luck with that, after years of GOP fear-mongering on the issue that continues to this day.

President Donald Trump and other right-wing extremists are telling the Big Lie that mail-in voting is a plot by progressives to hurt Republicans at the polls.

Here’s the truth: There’s no widespread voter fraud in the U.S. It’s not true that millions of falsified votes are being cast by undocumented immigrants or anybody else, or that millions of ballots are being falsely recorded, or that millions of ballots are being tossed out, or any of that GOP garbage.

There are protections in place.

Study after study has shown that while voter fraud does occur, incidents of it are few and far between.

Those conclusions completely stand to reason. Think about the number of people who would have to be complicit in pulling off voter fraud at any significant level. It would involve poll volunteers and overseers, secretary of state office personnel, officials and party operatives who pore over results and look for anomalies, and researchers who for years have been studying the system.

The GOP’s voter fraud claim is simply part of its larger effort to suppress the vote among people who tend not to support Republicans, including people of color, lower-income Americans and younger voters. It’s a campaign that also involves excessive documentation requirements, cumbersome registration practices, closing polling locations in Democratic-leaning areas, and vehemently opposing efforts to make registration and voting more convenient — like mail-in balloting.

What’s needed are stronger laws and penalties for people — individuals or especially organizations — that send out fake ballots to mislead people into the thinking they’ve already voted by mail. Our existing laws are not strong enough to penalize that behavior. We need federal laws criminalizing efforts to deceive people that they have cast a legitimate ballot.

Adams and other Republicans spent years claiming the system needed to be hardened. If they’re serious about expanding mail-in balloting, they should take this necessary step to protect the vote.