PFAW Member,
Donald Trump began his day yesterday with a series of early morning tweets threatening to withhold critical funding from states that are taking efforts protect voters and allow them to safely cast ballots.
Trump at 7:51am ET:
“Breaking: Michigan sends absentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election. This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!..”
Trump at 9:11am ET:
“State of Nevada ‘thinks’ that they can send out illegal vote by mail ballots, creating a great Voter Fraud scenario for the State and the U.S. They can’t! If they do, ‘I think’ I can hold up funds to the State. Sorry, but you must not cheat in elections. @RussVought45 @USTreasury”
Of course there is nothing illegal or improper about what these states are doing – in Michigan, the Secretary of State is merely sending applications for absentee ballots to all voters! – but the type of corrupt retribution and extortion that Trump threatened almost certainly IS illegal.
And it’s clear that his threats are politically motivated and have nothing to do with so-called ‘voter fraud,’ as pointed out by Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s response on Twitter highlighting the fact that her “GOP colleagues in Iowa, Georgia, Nebraska and West Virginia” did the same thing she did without attracting any angry threats from Trump.
It’s never been more apparent: Trump and his Republican enablers want to end democracy. They want to do it by taking the people’s ability to remove them from office by taking away the vote.
Trump clearly doesn’t know or care what’s legal and what’s not. His lawyers are no doubt scrambling to spin his tweets into some sort of policy they’d be able to defend in court.
While his tweets are vague about exactly what money he’s threatening to withhold, states are in dire need of pandemic relief funding and are desperately scrambling to make up for major budget gaps due to the impacts of coronavirus.
The harm Trump is threatening – out of vindictiveness, spite, and a driving instinct to avoid accountability via the ballot – is ghoulish.
And it’s eerily reminiscent of the very thing Trump was impeached for – withholding aid money to force Ukraine to help him politically … now he’s trying to do the same thing to the states!
This is not a president who gives one ounce of a damn about the American people, the Constitution, or our democracy.
We’re fighting to stop voter suppression in the states, expand SAFE voting options – whether vote by mail, absentee, or in-person – and pass vital congressional funding to secure our elections.
But we’re up against a foe as ruthless and LAWLESS as this country has ever seen.
Thank you for all you do!
-- Ben, Zach, Sarah, Charlie, Kristen, and the whole team at PFAW
P.S. The Trump campaign is also spending big on digital disinformation ads to amplify his baseless accusations of "voter fraud." The amount and speed of the lies coming both from the bully pulpit and deep-pocketed GOP groups is staggering and it's going to take every last bit of support we can muster to fight back.
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