Sunday, June 11, 2023 | 2 a.m.
View more of the Sun's opinion section
Americans might need collective treatment for whiplash after Republican Party leadership did an about-face regarding their claims of rampant election fraud.
For years, the GOP has relentlessly argued that hundreds of thousands ... wait no, million ... wait no, zillions of fraudulent votes were being cast in the names of everyone from deceased relatives to the neighbor’s cat.
To combat the scourge of allegedly rampant voter fraud, GOP officials fought tooth and nail to end early voting, mail-in voting, ballot drop boxes and so-called ballot harvesting — the gathering and submitting of absentee ballots of people who can’t easily get to the polls. These practices promote increased participation in U.S. elections and help senior citizens, college students, low-income people, single parents, rural Americans and people with disabilities or chronic health conditions to participate in elections.
The GOP’s essential claim was that anything that makes voting more convenient must be rife with fraud and abuse.
To be fair, every now and then a story would emerge about a single individual or couple — almost always Republicans themselves — who were caught trying to vote fraudulently. But the stories of rampant voter fraud weren’t just exaggerated, they were flat-out lies designed to manipulate voters into believing that America’s election system is broken. The lies sought to delegitimize any election that the Republican candidate didn’t win.
We know they were lies because some Republicans helped create a system that is widely considered the gold standard for detecting voter fraud and ensuring voter rolls are kept up to date. In 2012, a bipartisan coalition of elected officials that included Nevada’s own Brian Sandoval and Utah’s Gary Herbert, founded the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, a nonprofit, nonpartisan data clearinghouse that helps states keep voter rolls accurate and up to date.
ERIC uses information from voter rolls, motor vehicle department records, Social Security death records and change-of-address forms to maintain a database of voters in the participating states. When matching files are found indicating that a person has moved but not yet updated their voter registration or has died but has not yet been removed from the voter rolls, a report is sent to the relevant states so they can update the applicable records. The system also promoted participation in elections by identifying Americans who are eligible to vote but not yet registered.
At its peak, 31 states and the District of Columbia participated in the system. Members ranged from Democratic strongholds like Illinois and Oregon to deep-red Republican powerhouses like Florida, Texas and South Carolina. The more states that participate the more data ERIC has access to and the better the system gets.
Which is why it’s so surprising that the very party that has championed the need to combat voter fraud is now abandoning the system they helped build. Over the past 18 months, eight states — all Republican-led — have left ERIC, making it clear that Republican leaders never cared about voter fraud or election integrity to begin with.
Simultaneously, the GOP is doing a 180 on early voting, vote by mail, ballot drop boxes and ballot harvesting.
At a press event last week, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel announced the RNCs new “Bank Your Vote” initiative, which encourages “in-person early voting, absentee voting and ballot harvesting where legal.”
It’s a head-spinning shift from the party’s rhetoric in 2020 and 2022 when disgraced ex-President Donald Trump and his conspiratorial allies repeatedly encouraged their voters to vote only in person and only on election day.
In June 2020, Trump tweeted “RIGGED 2020 ELECTION: MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES, AND OTHERS. IT WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES!”
Two months earlier, he tweeted, “GET RID OF BALLOT HARVESTING, IT IS RAMPANT WITH FRAUD.”
Today Trump is asking donors to chip in for his “ballot harvesting fund” — saying in a fundraising email, “Either we ballot harvest where we can, or you can say goodbye to America!”
Another Republican presidential candidate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, called for criminalizing ballot harvesting in 2021. “We’re going to make sure ballot harvesting is a third-degree felony,” he told a raucous Palm Beach County crowd two years ago.
Last week he told a voter in Iowa, “We’re gonna do ballot harvesting, I’m doing it, yes.”
Democrats are justifiably critical of the GOP change in course.
“Donald Trump and extremist Republicans have spent years telling lies about elections to justify their losses. That includes demonizing mail ballots and ballot collection,” said Jena Griswold, Colorado’s secretary of state and head of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State. “These hypocritical extremists are only interested in spreading chaos and trying to gain power at any cost.”
We agree that the current GOP is the party of chaos, hypocrisy and extremism. Its leadership are feckless liars who intentionally undermine faith in American democracy because they can’t win if they’re honest.
Despite the sad state of the Republican Party, we’re glad to see Republican candidates embracing strategies that provide as many voters as possible the opportunity to participate meaningfully in elections and have their voices heard. Early voting, mail-in ballots, ballot drop boxes and ballot harvesting are valuable tools that can help ensure people who lack mobility, such as seniors and those with disabilities, are not left out of the electoral process. They also provide convenience for working parents and people balancing multiple jobs or elder-care responsibilities.
To be clear, we don’t believe that the GOP is really relenting on trying to manipulate U.S. elections. They still have many tools at their disposal including gerrymandering and onerous voting requirements that are designed to suppress specific groups of American voters.
But the GOP has lifted the veil on its yearslong campaign of deceit regarding voter fraud. Unfortunately, they still haven’t been honest and owned up to their campaign of misinformation. Until they do, voters should ask themselves if they can trust the Republican Party moving forward.
