In an interview with Fox News broadcast on Friday, White House adviser Stephen Miller railed against mail-in voting, describing it as a “catastrophic problem.”
Miller argued that foreign interference could be an issue in the 2020 presidential elections, alleging that “nobody who mails in a ballot has their identity confirmed.”
“Any foreign national — talk about foreign election interference — can mail in a ballot and nobody even verifies if they’re a citizen of the United States of America.”
On Thursday, President Donald Trump similarly suggested that mail-in voting would make it easier for hostile entities to meddle in the 2020 elections, also arguing that there would be no way to accurately count the votes.
Attorney General William Barr picked his words more carefully. During a hearing before the U.S. Congress earlier this week, he agreed that meddling is a real possibility but said that he has no reason to believe the November contest will be “rigged.”
Election interference, Miller said, could be happening on a “scale of potentially millions of people,” because Democrats have included a vote-by-mail plan in the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act passed by the House of Representatives.
Miller also slammed former President Barack Obama .
On Thursday, when he eulogized civil rights icon John Lewis, Obama discussed alleged Republican efforts to suppress the vote, accusing Trump and Republicans of attacking Americans’ rights with “surgical precision.”
He argued that the GOP is suppressing turnout by undermining the U.S. Postal Service, imposing ID laws and closing polling locations across the nation.
Miller described Obama’s comments as “scandalously” and “outrageously” false.
“How can anybody claim that it is voter suppression to ask if somebody who’s voting, if John Smith is really John Smith?” Miller asked.
“Americans have to present [an] ID to do all kinds of basic functions. It’s a simple principle: one citizen, one vote,” he said.
Trump and his allies have frequently taken aim at mail-in ballots, criticizing Democratic demands to expand the program. Earlier this week, the commander-in-chief went as far as to suggest that it would be better to delay the elections than to let Americans vote from home amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Less than 24 hours later — following intense and bipartisan criticism — Trump changed course, stating that he would, in fact, like to hold the election earlier than scheduled.
In an interview on Friday, Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi described the president’s suggestion as an attempt to suppress voter turnout.
