On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks stated that Republican opposition to voting by mail is not only wrong, but also politically stupid because a lot of Republican states with spread-out populations vote by mail, and Trump has many “disengaged voters, low-information voters who aren’t too active in politics, but who showed up” and voters who live in rural areas.
Brooks said there isn’t any significant evidence of voter fraud associated with voting by mail, and added, “Encouraging people to vote is good. Discouraging people to vote is bad. We live in a democracy. Voting is a civic act that…should be encouraged.”
He continued, “I’m also struck not only by the wrongness of it, but by, in my view, the stupidity of it for Republicans. They’ve got it in their head they need to suppress voting. But if you look at who likes mail-in voting, as Mark said, it’s a lot of Western states. They don’t want to drive so far in normal times, and now, they don’t want to endanger themselves. Mitt Romney had a comment that, in Utah, he said, we overwhelmingly vote by mail, and it works pretty well for us. If you look at Trump voters, he’s got a lot of rural voters. And he’s got, frankly, a lot of disengaged voters, low-information voters who aren’t too active in politics, but who showed up for Donald Trump in 2016. It seems to me he would want to lower the barriers to voting to — in order to keep those people engaged with him. It’s all mystifying.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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