Dem
53
Ties
1
GOP
46
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin hasn't yet really settled into his new job, and yet he's already very unpopular in MAGA world, for various reasons. That means he really needs to shore up his position by pandering to the boss. To that end, he made some very big statements about "proven" voter fraud, declaring "We've identified 250,000 noncitizens registered to vote in just four states." The four states in question are Nevada, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and California, and this total is not a new "revelation"—it's actually just parroting what Donald Trump said in his "voter fraud" speech back in July.
Of that 250,000, the total for Nevada is allegedly 15,903. This is from statements that Mullin himself made back in July. However, the media have laid hands on internal DHS documents, and found that the actual number of cases DHS has uncovered in Nevada is... 185. That is about 1% of the claimed number, which is rather low, given that DHS staffers have been looking under every rock for fraudulent ballots (and note, most "fraudulent" ballots involve accidental acts of fraud, not deliberate ones).
Still, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again, right? So, with Mullin working hard to cover his ass
protect election "integrity," he
announced
this week that DHS will mount a "coordinated criminal voter fraud surge initiative to pursue investigative leads,
conduct field interviews, and support timely prosecutorial review." In other words, it's crunch time.
Of course, given that there's already been plenty of surging, DHS undoubtedly isn't going to find anything substantive. Certainly not the quarter-million fraudulent votes that both Mullin and Trump have claimed. Mullin's goal here is, again, very obvious: He's trying to quiet the MAGA doubters. As to Trump, and the others in the administration who are enabled by these kinds of shenanigans, the purpose is either to lay the groundwork for some sort of federal intervention in elections (the worse option) or to give Trump fuel for carping about how his team didn't actually lose (the less bad, albeit very annoying, option).
Meanwhile, Trump and his lackeys at the USPS are still fighting to block mail-in ballots from states that refuse to release lists of voters to the government. As we noted yesterday, those efforts are tied up in court right now. And if the current issues somehow get worked out in the manner the White House wants (not likely, certainly not in time for this election), some new issues presented themselves yesterday.
Those new issues are courtesy of a whistleblower at USPS who sent a 20-page letter to some person or entity, with the letter eventually ending up in the hands of Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who released it publicly. Blumenthal is the ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, so was an appropriate recipient for the letter.
What the complaint reveals, in so many words, is that the hastily assembled system the USPS put together to "vet" mail-in ballots is exactly the sh**show that you think it is. In fact, that's exactly how it's described in the letter. The whole setup is full of problems, which the whistleblower believes is a feature, not a bug, designed to depress turnout. The revelation that will particularly cause people (e.g., judges) to sit up and take notice is that it's possible that a whole tranche of entirely valid ballots could be rejected because there is one invalid ballot among them.
Again, the whole USPS mail-in-ballot scheme already has all sorts of legal problems that are not likely to be unsnarled anytime soon, if ever. But now it's got massive practical and logistical problems, too. There is just no way a judge can sign off on this until such point that the USPS accounts for itself, and offers some proof-of-concept that it can actually do the job, if it is indeed asked to.
We pass along all of this news because it is wise to be informed and to be vigilant. But we encourage readers not to be too concerned about it, at least not right now. First, because this administration is predictably incompetent. They have been trying to put their thumbs on the scale for elections for, what, four or five different cycles at this point, and have never had any success. Why would this election be different?
On top of that, the courts are still substantially reliable as a bulwark against this kind of nonsense. As to the USPS stuff, we just don't believe that the legal aspects of that can plausibly be worked out before ballots go out and begin to be cast. And they will probably never be "worked out," since what Trump is trying to do is plainly unlawful. Meanwhile, Trump has piled up an unbelievable string of losses in court where he had big claims of voter fraud, but no proof. Even his friends on the Supreme Court weren't buying what he was selling. Again, why would this election be different?
Finally, even if Trump & Co. actually succeed in their schemes, it's not clear they will have the effect Trump wants. To take the obvious example, there's no clear reason to think that screwing around with mail-in ballots, mostly in blue states, will help the GOP. Urban voters, who skew very blue, could skip mail-in voting altogether to avoid the risk, or could show up to vote on Election Day if they haven't gotten proof of receipt of their absentee ballot. Rural voters, who skew red, can't exercise either of those options as easily. Trump is simply unwilling, or unable, to game these things out. (Z)