Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams said Thursday that President Trump is an “illegitimate” leader and that he opposes mail-in ballots because he’s “afraid” it will increase voter turnout.
“When Donald Trump says he doesn’t like vote-by-mail, he says it despite the fact that he has used it himself,” Abrams, who many believe is on the short list to join Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign as his running mate, said on CNN analyst David Axelrod’s podcast. “And he dislikes it despite the fact that there is no evidence of fraud. We have had this form of voting for decades. The challenge that he sees is that it will increase the likelihood of those that are confined to home actually using that time to participate in the election. And anytime a leader is afraid of people speaking their minds and making their selections, he is illegitimate and should not hold office.”
Abrams attempted to make the argument that mail-in voting is necessary to combat the spread of the coronavirus at polling places.
“What we face with COVID-19 is an exacerbation of, but also a concentration of, the challenge that we face in this country, the challenge that voters in Georgia faced in 2018, the voters in Ohio and Wisconsin and Florida have continually faced,” she said, referring to her loss in the 2018 race for Georgia governor that she has insisted multiple times was affected by “voter suppression” despite some evidence to the contrary. “And that is an artificial attempt to break the connection between being a citizen and having the right to express your views and choose your leaders.”
Critics of increasing mail-in ballots have argued that the process isn’t secure and is vulnerable to voter fraud.
A report earlier this month from the Public Interest Legal Foundation concluded that more than 28 million mail-in ballots had gone unaccounted for in the last 10 years. The same group also reported a court briefing in New Mexico showed that thousands of ineligible voters could potentially receive mail-in ballots, including dead people.
Abrams has dismissed not only the possibility of voter fraud through the mail, but of voter fraud in general.
“Voter fraud is, by and large, a myth,” Abrams said again while claiming that Trump doesn’t support mail-in ballots because he has a “concern” that it will “work for every American.”
Last year, the Heritage Foundation released a study providing over 1,000 examples of documented voter fraud that produced over 900 convictions across 47 states.
Leaders of the Democratic Party have echoed Abrams’s position, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said earlier this month she supports increased mail-in voting and labeled Republicans who don’t as “afraid.”
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll conducted between April 13 and April 15 suggested the majority of people in the United States side with Pelosi and Abrams in terms of mail-in ballots. Fifty-eight percent of voters said they support changing state laws to increase mail-in voting amid coronavirus fears, compared to 39% who don’t.
