Progressives were forced to remind President Donald Trump that voting is a right enshrined by law—and not a mere privilege bestowed by political leaders—after Trump declared in a rant against mail-in ballots Wednesday that "voting is an honor."
Hours after threatening to withhold funding from Michigan and Nevada over the states' efforts to expand ballot access amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Trump—who himself votes by mail—said during a roundtable discussion at the White House that "if you can, you should go and vote."
"It shouldn't be something where they send you a pile of stuff and you send it back," Trump said, repeating his baseless claim that absentee ballots are prone to "massive manipulation."
"Voting is an honor," Trump says to justify his opposition to mail-in voting (voting is actually a right!) pic.twitter.com/xxzLHbj2uU — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 20, 2020
Rights groups denounced Trump's warnings to Michigan and Nevada on Wednesday as an open effort to suppress the vote for his own political benefit. Michigan is planning to mail absentee ballot applications to all registered voters for its August and November elections, while Nevada is set to hold its state primary next month entirely by mail to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
"Once again the president is showing that he wants to disenfranchise millions of Americans for political gain—even though he himself voted by absentee ballot," Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at Common Cause, told Common Dreams in an emailed statement. "All eligible Americans, Independent, Republican, and Democrat, deserve to have access to the ballot."
On Twitter, advocates voiced their opposition to the president's repeated attacks on vote-by-mail by reiterating that voting is a right:
"Voting isn't a gift given by leaders," tweeted Joanne Freeman, professor of history at Yale University. "Citizens have the right to vote."
Bnagorski on May 21st, 2020 at 12:07 UTC »
Just remember that trump and his whole family vote by mail. He’s not against voting by mail, he’s against poor people and minorities voting by mail.
viva_la_vinyl on May 21st, 2020 at 11:34 UTC »
OK. Bring every service man and woman back home to vote in November. They won't mind, and you won't have to worry about the fraud that has never happened even once since this started in the 1940s. Nor is there any example of fraud anywhere else.
Trump lies as he breathes.
coreoYEAH on May 21st, 2020 at 11:13 UTC »
How is it in the land where people will kill each other for their rights, the right to vote is a progressive response?