Is Trump administration working to prevent mail-in voting to circumvent voting during the general election?
In an interview, Attorney General William Barr went after Democrats on a number of issues, including rumors that President Trump would attempt to stay in office should he lose the general election in November.
“You know liberals project,” an unusually salty Barr said during his interview. “You know the president is going to stay in office and seize power and all that s***? I have never heard of that crap. I mean, I am the attorney general. I would think I would have heard about it.”
Though the interview was a discussion on crime and corruption in U.S. cities, particularly in Chicago, Barr also used the opportunity to address several issues that have dominated the news cycle leading up to the presidential election.
“There undoubtedly are many people in the government who surreptitiously work to thwart the administration,” the attorney general said. Barr also mentioned that the U.S. was approaching a “ruled by the mob” approach to governance. “Increasingly, the message of the Democrats appears to be ‘Biden or no peace’,” he added. Barr said he agreed the upcoming election was the “most significant election of a lifetime” ; a position taken by both Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
“As an attorney general, I am not supposed to get into politics,” Barr said. “But I think we are getting into a position where we are going to find ourselves irrevocably committed to a socialist path. And I think if Trump loses this election, that will be the case.”
The conversation then diverted to voting rights and the safety of mail-in voting, with the attorney general suggesting that postal workers will be able to be paid off in order to buy the blank ballots that are routinely distributed for presidential elections.
“Just think about the way we vote now,” Barr said. “You have a precinct, your name is on a list, you go in and say who you are, you go behind a curtain, no one is allowed to go in there to influence you, and no one can tell how you voted. All of that is gone with mail-in voting.”
Quiet a number of states, including Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah, and Washington, automatically submit mail-in ballots to all state residents for the general election. Due to the coronavirus, over 20 other states have taken measures to ensure citizens can vote by mail rather than at a polling station come November, a measure that the Trump administration has claimed poses a threat to the validity of the voting process.
“There is no more secret vote with mail-in vote. A secret vote prevents selling and buying votes. So now we are back in the business of selling and buying votes,” he said. “And the capricious distribution of ballots means harvesting, undue influence, outright coercion, paying off a postman, here is a few hundred dollars, give me some of your ballots.”
However, Democrats in Congress believe the Trump administration is working to prevent mail-in voting to circumvent voting during the general election, in an attempt to sway the 2020 presidential election results. Congressional Democrats initiated an investigation following comments made by Trump suggesting he purposefully blocked funding to the U.S. Postal Service to prevent their ability to cope with the expected increase of mail-in ballots as a result of the pandemic.
