Fox News host Tucker Carlson said Tuesday that mail-in voting combined with ballot harvesting could lead to massive voter fraud.
Carlson noted on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” that President Donald Trump expressed his opposition to mail-in ballots in a Tuesday tweet that began by vowing, “There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed.”
There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed. The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2020
….living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get one. That will be followed up with professionals telling all of these people, many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2020
“Now for the first time ever,” Carlson said, “Twitter.com, the company, responded directly to one of the president’s tweets. They inserted a link below this one to declare authoritatively that the tweet was false. ‘Get the facts about mail-in ballots …’ The user is taken to a Twitter news page that declares ‘Trump makes unsubstantiated claim that mail-in voting will lead to voter fraud.’”
“That’s the official story. Voter fraud never happens no matter what and it definitely won’t happen with mail-in voting. You are hearing trusted news anchors tell you that — a lot. And they say it like they know it … That’s a lie and we know it’s a lie. Because fraud via mail-in voting already happens.” (RELATED: Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick: Mail-In Voting ‘A Scam By Democrats To Steal The Election)
But Carlson says mail-in voting combined with ballot harvesting —where a third party collects the ballots — adds up to a grave threat to democracy.
“Harvesters can go to people’s homes — and they do … They pressure them to vote or to vote the right way, or they help a person read through a ballot while nudging them on who to vote for,” Carlson said.
He suggested it would be easy to buy a blank ballot from a voter, to not seal a ballot in its envelope or to eliminate ballots that “don’t vote the right way. We’re not saying that all of these methods of fraud are equally likely … but the point is this: universal mail-in voting with ballot harvesting massively expands the potential for voter fraud.”
“I don’t care what Twitter tells you, that’s true. It’s obvious. And by the way, it’s been documented … It’s not a theoretical risk. Actual voter fraud has happened despite what they tell you all over the country,” the Daily Caller co-founder said. (RELATED: Joe Scarborough Claims ‘A Lot’ Of Republicans ‘Don’t Want’ Black People To Vote By Mail)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is proposing a $3.6 billion bill to establish mail-in voting — which she has called “Voting at Home.” The Democratic California congresswoman has argued that the method is a way to make voting safer during the coronavirus pandemic and to help the United States Postal Service regain fiscal stability.
The Trump administration is opposed to mass mail-in voting and last Wednesday threatened to withhold federal funds from states that practice it.
