Was Trump Trolling Democrats with Question about Delaying the Election?

            The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is the 2020 presidential election. Democrats are pushing to institutionalize mail-in balloting. Republicans are totally against the idea because they believe that it will encourage more voter fraud. Both sides have reasonable concerns, but some are more reasonable than others.

Democrats claim that the pandemic makes it unsafe for people to go to the polls to vote; therefore, it is critical to have mail-in voting to ensure that every American can vote. This situation elicited a tweet from Donald Trump about delaying the election. The Democrat reaction was his reward. He proved that leftists are not concerned about voter safety from the coronavirus. The leftist claim would have more creditability if leftists were not rioting in the streets for the past two months. It would also have more creditability if Democrats and liberals had not met by the thousands for funerals for George Floyd and Representative John Lewis (D-GA). It is right to say that voting in person can be done safely if people can safely riot in the streets, attend funerals, shop at grocery stores, etc.

Republicans have good reason to believe that vote by mail would encourage voter fraud or at least cause other election problems. Even though The Heritage Foundation has compiled thousands of cases of voter fraud, there is not much evidence that it comes from mail-in voting. However, there is evidence of other problems with voting by mail. This site reported that more than 28 million mail-in ballots cannot be found.

Between 2012 and 2018, 28.3 million mail-in ballots remain unaccounted for, according to data from the federal Election Assistance Commission. The missing ballots amount to nearly one in five of all absentee ballots and ballots mailed to voters residing in states that do elections exclusively by mail.

States and local authorities simply have no idea what happened to these ballots since they were mailed – and the figure of 28 million missing ballots is likely even higher because some areas in the country, notably Chicago, did not respond to the federal agency’s survey questions. This figure does not include ballots that were spoiled, undeliverable, or came back for any reason.

Although there is no evidence that the millions of missing ballots were used fraudulently, the Public Interest Legal Foundation, which compiled the public data provided from the Election Assistance Commission, says that the sheer volume of them raises serious doubts about election security.

            One should admit that 28 million missing ballots is cause for concern. This is particularly true because there have been numerous reports of bins of ballots being found in back rooms long after the election is over. This article says that absentee voter fraud in districts in four states – Florida, Missouri, New York and North Carolina – caused election results to be overturned. The legislation being pushed by Democrats would allow for a practice known as ballot harvesting, a practice involved in “the largest voter fraud scandal of recent decades.”

            Instead of pushing mail-in voting, states “should be encouraging wide use of absentee voting in the primary season” and making serious plans for what they will do for the general election. Absentee ballots must be postmarked before election day, while mail-in balloting have until polls close on election day. The article gave “15 instances in which courts threw out an election result based in whole or in part on absentee voting fraud.”

            This article discusses Trump’s question about delaying the general election. It says that Trump achieved his goal if his purpose was “to get people talking.” However, he missed his goal if he was sending up “a serious political trial balloon.” In fact, it says that “Congress would have to pass, and the president would have to sign, any act that would delay an election for federal office.”

The Constitution doesn’t give the executive branch any unilateral authority to delay, reschedule, or change the federal election in November. Congress and the states have authority to make changes if there is a deemed emergency….

States have considerable leeway in changing the dates of presidential primaries, as happened this year with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic….[G]overnors can change the date of a primary election without approval from the legislature in the event of an emergency….

States can also determine how elections are administered, such as with mail-in balloting….

            Even though Trump was not serious with his question, it did show the hypocrisy of the Democrat Party and its concern over the safely of voting in person. However, the experts at The Heritage Foundation could not remember a time when a general election was delayed. With more that 240 years of experience behind us, I believe that it is safe to assume that the election will not be delayed in 2020. However, I am sure that Democrats will find other things to cause an uproar. Maybe Trump will troll them again!