In a deeply cynical move, President Donald Trump has attempted to convince Republicans to oppose expanding vote-by-mail options during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is essential for all Americans to be given the option to vote by mail in upcoming primary elections and the November general election, given that in the United States, the pandemic has alreadyinfected more than 784,000 people, resulting in more than 42,000 deaths. Seemingly without concern for the public’s health, Trump has cravenly claimed that if more Americans cast votes by mail, fewer Republicans will win elections. As the Center for American Progress Action Fund recently addressed, Trump’s goal of suppressing voters to boost his chances of reelection also includes his bogus claim that voting by mail leads to fraud. Despite Trump’s arguments, the real-world facts show that voting by mail does not disadvantage either major political party and is extremely popular with Americans across the political spectrum. Moreover, many Republican state officials disagree with Trump and are taking steps to expand voting by mail to help protect the health and safety of their voters.
Republican officials nationwide disagree with Trump’s partisan arguments
On April 8, 2020, Trump asserted on Twitter, “Republicans should fight very hard when it comes to state wide mail-in voting. Democrats are clamoring for it. Tremendous potential for voter fraud, and for whatever reason, doesn’t work out well for Republicans.” A week earlier, Trump attacked vote-by-mail reforms proposed by congressional Democrats, saying, “They had levels of voting, that if you ever agreed to it you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
Trump’s attempts to unify Republicans to oppose voting by mail have not yet succeeded. In part this is because voting by mail is not a recent occurrence: Republicans—especially at the state and local levels—have been part of a movement for decades to support mail-in balloting, according to former Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour. As experts have noted, “At its inception, vote-by-mail was championed by Republican and Democratic leaders alike. Washington’s former Republican secretary of state, Sam Reed, was for years the nation’s most prominent advocate for the reform.”