Stacey Abrams: Vote-by-Mail Is ‘Safest Way to Vote’

Appearing Wednesday on MSNBC Live, failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams (D) asserted that voters should be able to vote by mail in the 2020 presidential election, claiming it is the “safest way to vote.”

A transcript is as follows:

CRAIG MELVIN: Should we vote by mail in November?

STACEY ABRAMS: Absolutely. Vote by mail is the safest way to vote. And right now, I would say almost every state has the capacity to vote by mail. The challenge is that in a lot of states you have to have an excuse. In fact, Governor Kay Ivey of Alabama, today or yesterday, said that she wasn’t in favor of removing the excuse. The reality is everyone has an excuse — COVID-19. We need to be certain that even if things have tampered down by then, we have to prepare for it not to be so. That means we have to start planning now for the November election.

We need vote by mail, it needs to be postage paid. There needs to be safeguards to ensure that people do not have to provide unnecessary information and we have to make certain that for those who need to vote in person, that they still have the opportunity. The disabled community, people with language barriers, people without addresses, they need to be able to go into a polling place and cast their ballots in accordance with CDC guidelines. But vote by mail should be available to every eligible American, and we have limited in-person early voting.”