How Trump Can Use Chaos to Cheat in the Midterms
In his crusade to undermine American democracy, Donald Trump doesn’t have to win to win. He only needs to create a mess. Look at this week’s news. There were several court actions regarding Trump’s outrageous attempt to restrict mail-in voting for the midterms. The back-and-forth was confusing, as the Supreme Court undid a lower court’s […]
Donald Trump's primary objective does not necessarily involve winning the midterms; rather, his goal is to sow chaos. This week, various court battles concerning Trump's efforts to restrict mail-in voting for the midterms have unfolded. The Supreme Court overturned a lower court's decision blocking key components of Trump's plan, but a federal judge subsequently put a temporary restraining order on the USPS from moving forward with Trump's scheme.
Mail-in voting is set to begin within a few weeks in some states, which aligns with Trump's desire for chaos.
It would be detrimental to democracy if Trump successfully limits mail-in voting. Eight states and Washington D.C. conduct primarily mail-in elections, along with several other states that rely heavily on mail-in ballots. Even if the courts reject Trump's assault on postal voting, the confusion he creates could still undermine the election.
Trump has already managed to push Republicans to gerrymander congressional districts ahead of schedule, giving the GOP an advantage this year. He has also deployed 1,000 election monitors to voting sites in November, which could lead to voter intimidation or even the deployment of troops, National Guard forces, or ICE agents to poll sites.
The hiring of a lawyer with a history of hacking election sites into the Justice Department's election monitoring project is another cause for concern. Trump's administration has been promoting conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, and Harmeet Dhillon, head of the division responsible for election monitoring, is an election denier who promoted Trump's false claims.
In a speech, Trump falsely claimed that 250,000 noncitizens were on the voter rolls of four states, but this has since been disproven. Thus, nothing Trump says about voting should be taken at face value.
Written by urgent.news from Mother Jones's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
