Donald Trump Is Creating Mail-In Ballot Conspiracy To Explain Away Potential Loss, Says Michigan Lt. Governor
Michigan Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist said, in a recent interview with MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt, that he believes President Donald Trump’s rants against mail-in ballots is “all a setup,” as reported by Raw Story.
“The truth is more people are killed by deer in a year than have ever been proven to commit voter fraud at a given time,” he explained.
The Michigan politician said that he thinks Trump is claiming mail-in ballots lead to fraud because he’s getting ready to explain a potential loss in November, MLive reported.
“I think that the president wants to set us up so that there can be a conversation about the legitimacy of an election that he is looking to lose. That is a really unfortunate thing. That’s not how we do democracy here in the United States, and we need to be ready to respond to that forcefully.”
Gilchrist’s comments come just four days after Trump threatened to “withhold funding” from Michigan if the state continued forward with its plans for absentee ballots. Officials in states other than Michigan that have adopted similar policies said they are changing the policy for absentee ballots for this year only because of the coronavirus outbreak. They don’t believe people should have to fear going to vote and catching the virus when there are other options available.
While some states, like California, usually have very specific reasons for the use of mail-in ballots, Michigan’s rules have been laxer for years. In 2018, the state passed no-reason absentee voting. Gilchrist said Trump believes his inability to win Michigan by a wide margin is because of absentee voting.
Trump made similar claims of cutting off funding to the state of Nevada on the same day that he threatened Michigan. Hours before Gilchrist’s appearance on MSNBC, Trump posted on Twitter that he believes all mail-in voting would lead to massive voter fraud.
“The United States cannot have all Mail In Ballots. It will be the greatest Rigged Election in history. People grab them from mailboxes, print thousands of forgeries and “force” people to sign. Also, forge names. Some absentee OK, when necessary. Trying to use Covid for this Scam!”
Trump isn’t the only one who is claiming large scale absentee ballots can lead to voter fraud. As The Inquisitr reported earlier, the Republican National Committee filed a lawsuit against California and Governor Gavin Newsom over that state’s mail-in voting rules. The RNC alleged in the suit Newsom was violating the constitution with his executive order allowing state-wide absentee voting.
