President Trump has warned the nation that the Democrats’ push for vastly expanded mail-in voting could signal their plans to rig the 2020 election. His warning about potentially massive fraud with mail-in voting is buttressed by the work of American experts in the electoral process as well as the experience of other countries.
And now, the “red mirage” scenario being floated in the news media highlights the possibility that it will be precisely those controversial mail-in votes that will decide the 2020 election and the future of the country. The “red mirage” scenario comes from analysis by a data firm funded by Michael Bloomberg and refers to the likelihood that the nation could see what appears to be a Trump landslide on election night, but that his victory will fade like a mirage in the desert in the coming days as Democrat mail-in votes are counted.
Given the well-known problems with mail-in voting and the history of opposition by Democrats to protections against voter fraud, it is possible that what the nation may see in November will look less like a “red mirage” and more like a blue coup.
Consider just a sample of expert opinions on mail-in voting:
In an interview, Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation cited the poor maintenance of voter rolls and the dangers of mass mailing of ballots to all registered voters. Thousands of ballots would go to the wrong people and some people could get multiple ballots. He noted that the risk for fraud and even voter intimidation increases substantially when ballots are completed “out of sight and out from under the supervision of election officials.”
Another respected expert, J. Christian Adams of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, joined von Spakovsky in an article detailing serious problems with voting by mail, including millions of missing mail-in ballots and ballots going to the wrong addresses. Other recent research by PILF indicates that double-voters have been found by the thousands in key battleground states, a problem exacerbated by mail-in voting.
American experts are not the only ones concerned about mail-in voting. John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center reported a comparative study of voting experiences and practices in other countries. Just one vote fraud case in the U.K. involved six politicians who won after a campaign of mail-in vote fraud described by the judge as “massive, systematic, and organized.” This research found widespread restrictions on mail-in voting in other countries as a protection against such fraud. For example, 63 percent of countries in the European Union do not allow mail-in voting unless the voter is currently living in another country, and 22 percent do not allow it even then. The other 16 countries in Europe had even more restrictive practices.
And the recent news report of a dead cat in Atlanta receiving a voter registration form by mail does nothing to promote confidence in the vote-by-mail scheme.
With reports of registrations and unsecured ballots floating around like discount coupons in the Sunday paper, and with swing states often won by narrow margins, worries about mail-in vote fraud changing an election outcome are fully understandable.
The Democrats have stubbornly resisted reasonable election integrity efforts such as cleaning the voter rolls of people who have moved or died, or even having voters show a simple ID to attest that they are who they say they are and are not voting in someone else’s name. Democrats have also been supportive of letting illegal immigrants vote in American elections as a means of expanding their voter base. And don’t forget that ballots “found” after the count on Election Day have a way of favoring Democrats.
And now we have the Democrats openly pushing for mail-in voting, even though the demonstrated problems with such votes would condemn the nation to weeks of ballot-counting circuses and court battles.
If those questionable ballots do indeed turn the tide against Trump in the post-election chaos, as the “red mirage” scenario suggests, the Democrats will risk the appearance of having stolen the election.
Why would the Democrats risk that?
Perhaps the Democrats have not only become more radical, socialist, and intolerant of dissent in recent years, but also more emboldened. Hillary Clinton walked free when anyone else would have been prosecuted for multiple crimes involving her private server and deleted emails. Joe Biden bragged on video about getting a Ukrainian prosecutor fired as a condition of getting U.S. aid, and yet the Democrats brazenly accused President Trump of a quid pro quo with Ukraine. And, other than one low-level plea deal, there have been no consequences for Obama’s Deep State allies spying on the Trump campaign or using their power to harass the Trump administration.
And perhaps the Democrats believe that floating the “red mirage” scenario now will give people time to get used to the idea of an election decided by a flood of questionable mail-in votes. After all, a riot-weary country might just grudgingly accept the result and move on.
We know what the Democrats will do to further their leftist agenda. What we don’t know is how mainstream America will react if their future is decided, not by a red mirage, but by a blue coup.
Tim Daughtry is a conservative speaker and co-author of Waking the Sleeping Giant: How Mainstream Americans Can Beat Liberals at Their Own Game. Follow him on Twitter @TCDwriter and on Parler @TimothyDaughtry.