‘Late Show with Stephen Colbert’: Bernie Sanders Goes All-In for Mail-In Voting

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) signaled strong support for mail-in voting during a Wednesday appearance on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert as several prominent members of the Democrat Party — from Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to Hillary Clinton — demand major changes to the way Americans vote ahead of November’s general election.

“Given what we saw yesterday, how it was impossible to keep the polling stations open without endangering the poll workers, how do we make sure that we have a smooth election in November?” Stephen Colbert asked, referencing Wisconsin holding its election as planned after the state’s Supreme Court overruled Gov. Tony Evers’ (D) executive order to delay it due to the coronavirus.

Sanders called the situation in Wisconsin “probably the ugliest thing that I have ever seen from a political perspective in my life” and pivoted to the general election.

“I don’t know what the world is going to look like in November. Nobody does. But I will tell you that I and many of my colleagues are working as hard as we can to come up with the money and the law to make sure that in November, if it is necessary, that the American people can vote by paper ballot,” Sanders said, calling it a “no-brainer.”

“Yeah, of course you don’t want people to put their lives on the line to have to go out and vote in person,” he said, blasting Republicans who remain skeptical of mail-in voting due to the increased risk of fraud and abuse.

Sanders’ call comes as several prominent Democrats angle to push mail-in voting for the upcoming election. Sanders’ former presidential rival, Sen. Warren, released a proposal this week outlining her vision for future elections. It includes universal vote-by-mail, a ban on cleaning voter rolls, and a change to providing traditional voter identification, allowing eligible individuals to vote with a “sworn statement of identity instead of a voter ID.” Meanwhile, Sen. Klobuchar is pushing a bill which would extend “no-excuse absentee vote-by-mail” to all states.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has signaled that Democrats hope to get vote-by-mail in the next coronavirus relief measure.