Sunday on MSNBC’s “AM Joy,” former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams said President Donald Trump and Republicans do not want vote-by-mail because they do not want to be “held accountable for their mismanagement and incompetence,” amid the coronavirus pandemic.
In a clip, Trump said, “They had levels of voting, that if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
Host Joy Reid asked, “Has it been as clear to you from Republicans that what they object to with vote-by-mail is the fact that more people would get to vote and that would hurt them in being able to win.”
Abrams said, “Yes, that has been the unequivocal statement not only made by Donald Trump, it was actually made in the state of Georgia by the speaker of the House. There was a reaction when the secretary of state in Georgia agreed to expand access to vote by mail by sending out 6.9 million ballot applications. The following weeks he created a voter fraud task force basically trying to use this to intimidate people out of using a right that they hold in the state of Georgia and have held since 2005. The challenge is this if everyone can participate, then choices we make will reflect the values and the needs of our communities. And because our communities have evolved, they’re more diverse, and they’re facing the consequences of COVID-19, not simply economically but physically, they are very afraid the Republicans are deeply afraid they will be held accountable for their mismanagement and incompetence, and that’s why they don’t want voting to be expanded to every eligible American voter.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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