Trump Nervous Nellie: Will Pull Out All the Stops to Disrupt Upcoming Election

Ho Lee Crap: Everything points to me losing in November 

(How do I fix things to favor me)

From a fine article at Politico with this headline about a clear and present and potentially direct danger and threat to the most-important part of our democratic system and that is: Guarding our right to vote: easy, safe, and secure: 

“Worried Trump Will Disrupt Voting This Fall? Here’s What to Watch For”

In recent weeks, Donald Trump has taken to Twitter to attack mail-in voting as fraudulent and corrupt and he has threatened to withhold (unspecified) state funding (which BTW: he cannot) for the steps many states are taking steps to expand mail-in voting and again by all historical records is safe, secure and relatively easy to monitor and verify the result if proper steps are implemented now.

A great report and rundown here from the experts at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU.

Trump’s attacks have come at a crucial time, as voters in around two dozen states cast their ballots for their June primary elections, many of them by mail, the safest way to vote amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Among the states that held primaries on Tuesday (June 2) for instance, some saw more than 20 times the absentee ballot requests of 2016.

Given the virtual nonexistence of empirical evidence of voter fraud, one might reasonably wonder if Trump has motives that go beyond calling attention to a vast (mythical) racket.

To some voting rights advocates and watchdogs, he’s doing nothing more than trying to discourage voting by mail, which many Republicans believe benefits Democrats (the actual data on the partisan advantages are shakier).

Trump himself suggested that part of his opposition to casting ballots by mail is about the partisan disadvantage in Tweet that Thursday night (June 4) saying: “MAIL IN VOTING WILL … LEAD TO THE END OF OUR GREAT REPUBLICAN PARTY.”

If disrupting the November election is in fact one of Trump’s goals, Twitter threats aren’t the only tool he has.

Trump and his staunch supporters have a range of mechanisms at their disposal — particularly amid this virus pandemic such as:

1. To restrict voting in person voting.

2. To change voting rules.

3. To hobble and slow down the postal service (as noted in this post, and recently here, and here, and then here (all the same subject).

4. Or, just intimidate or discourage voters, all of which could have an impact on election results.

Voter intimidation in particular should be a concern right now, as vigilante groups in some cities have taken to the street in recent days to enforce order amid protests against police brutality (George Floyd murder in Minneapolis).

Some of the tools Trump has to upset the election in November that voters and watchdogs both should be on guard and alert for those five points listed in the Politico site article.

My 2 cents: Not much more to add to this except to say we all must be alert and on guard for Trump and his operatives and their dirty tricks, which BTW the GOP is famous or infamous for.

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