Name: Guest Commentary: Democrats' last-minute, all mail-ballot reform would compromise the 2020 election
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Guest Commentary: Democrats' last-minute, all mail-ballot reform would compromise the 2020 election

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By and | Guest CommentaryAll that glitters is not gold and proposals from Democrats to nationalize the 2020 election are fool’s gold that could imperil the legitimacy of the 2020 election.Take for instance written by congressmen Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) and Dean Phillips (D-Minn). They treat mail-in ballots as a cure-all and make a pitch for the “bold democratic reform bill” offered by the House Democrats in Congress.But what they don’t tell you is that an overnight change to universal mail-in ballots will potentially disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters and that their so-called “bold proposals” are merely an attempt to get more votes for their party.The most recent House Democrat proposal mandates that every state mail a ballot to every registered address in the country for the 2020 election, even when the state suspects a registered voter has moved or died. Not only does this type of mandate waste taxpayer dollars by sending undeliverable mail, but it is impossible for the states to safely implement this system before voting begins.Democrats couldn’t even make a voting app work in Iowa and completely made a mess of their own caucus results, but they think that they can redesign the nation’s entire voting system in just six months? Give us a break. In addition to being sure that their vote was accurately recorded and counted, most Americans would prefer to know who won the presidential election before they start their Christmas shopping.Beyond the time it takes to redesign a voting system, a mandated universal vote-by-mail requirement is unsafe and risks disenfranchising large swaths of voters in this country. Even the Brennan Center for Justice (a left-leaning progressive policy organization) has concerns about implementing universal vote-by-mail in time for the 2020 election. In a March 31, 2020 article entitled “” the Brennan Center correctly noted that “ineffective mail service is more common in poor and minority communities as well as in rural communities.”&nbsp; Their conclusion is straightforward: “eliminating polling sites would completely disenfranchise these voters.”At the same time that these proposals would disenfranchise many of our most vulnerable, legislation proposed by Democrats would allow a vast expansion of the practice commonly known as ballot harvesting, which the Democrats euphemistically call “community collection.” It’s a slick way of removing an election safeguard.If you are unfamiliar, ballot harvesting is the practice of permitting any individual to collect and return an unlimited number of mail or absentee ballots without a documented chain of custody. This “democratic reform,” which the two congressmen supported by voting for the HEROES Act, poses two huge risks.First, it is completely inconsistent with social distancing guidance in this time of a pandemic and, ironically, is inconsistent with Gov. Jared Polis’s May 15th executive order which seeks to minimize door to door politicking. Second, ballot harvesting creates an environment for potential fraud and election illegitimacy. The Democrat proposal creates a compensation allowance for ballot traffickers (i.e., people who get paid to collect ballots).In other words, political organizations can pay ballot traffickers to go door-to-door in an attempt to collect ballots. Make no mistake, Democrat organizations are not paying ballot traffickers to go door-to-door in a nonpartisan manner to collect Republican ballots. And therein is where the potential for fraud exists. Creating a payment permission structure in federal legislation to allow compensated ballot harvesting is designed to affect election results.Taken together, these two proposals would lead to the disenfranchisement of voters and increase the potential for voter fraud without addressing the health concerns of voters. Absentee ballots are a great way to vote for the many senior citizens, military, and others who can’t get to the polls on election day. But creating a system that doesn’t reduce social interaction — and in fact, could increase it — while also losing the chain of custody of ballots is irresponsible. Trying to do it from scratch in less than six months is reckless.Clearly, the Democrats are simply using the coronavirus as an excuse and pretext to remove many safeguards for elections. Don’t be taken in by their rhetoric. It should not be a partisan issue to value election integrity — it’s a fundamentally American issue and essential to our constitutional republic.Jenna Ellis, an attorney, is senior legal advisor to the Trump campaign. Justin Clark, an attorney, is senior political advisor to the Trump campaign.To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit or check out our for how to submit by email or mail.We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. We reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions. 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By and | Guest CommentaryAll that glitters is not gold and proposals from Democrats to nationalize the 2020 election are fool’s gold that could imperil the legitimacy of the 2020 election.Take for instance written by congressmen Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) and Dean Phillips (D-Minn). They treat mail-in ballots as a cure-all and make a pitch for the “bold democratic reform bill” offered by the House Democrats in Congress.But what they don’t tell you is that an overnight change to universal mail-in ballots will potentially disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters and that their so-called “bold...

Guest Commentary: Democrats' last-minute, all mail-ballot reform would compromise the 2020 election

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