What’s real reason behind Trump’s lies?
There is no charitable way to spin President Donald Trump’s reckless claim that millions of undocumented voters cost him the popular vote in the 2016 election. Either he’s the sorest winner in American history, he’s delusional or he’s trying to lay the groundwork for more restrictive voter rules in the future.
Trump won the Electoral College with 304 votes; but Hillary Clinton won 2,864,974 more popular votes than he did. The only evidence of election rigging has pointed to Russians, who, according to U.S. intelligence, hacked Democrats’ emails to help Trump get elected – not actually alter any ballots.
Yet since late November, Trump has been chipping away at the integrity of the nation’s electoral system by insisting he would have won both the electoral and popular votes if, as he tweeted then, “you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally” in blue states such as California.
He offered no evidence for his incredible accusation mainly because no such evidence exists. Trump’s own legal team said as much as the sought to shut down during post-election recounts in Michigan and Wisconsin.
Trump produced zero proof when asked to put up or shut up by California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, among others. He has been contradicted by leading Republicans from Sen. Lindsey Graham to House Speaker Paul Ryan. Yet he repeated the false claim again this week, telling congressional leaders that Clinton benefited from as many as 5 million undocumented votes.
When Democrats protested, the president reportedly repeated an anecdote from a German golf pro whose friend had once been turned away from the polls while Latinos got provisional ballots. Tuesday, Trump’s increasingly compromised press secretary, Sean Spicer, cited studies that he said would back up Trump’s “longstanding belief” in massive voter fraud, but he did not.
Wednesday, Trump called for “a major investigation into voter fraud, including those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal and even, those registered to vote who are dead.” Actually, multiple registration isn’t illegal, only multiple voting. But news organizations soon produced public records showing Trump’s daughter Tiffany, chief strategist Steve Bannon and Treasury secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin all fell into Trump’s multiple registration dragnet.
Trump’s “investigation,” like his malicious border wall and refugee ban, is policy by prejudice, gossip and “alternative fact.” Worse, it could deprive lawful citizens of their right to vote.
Conservative groups such as the American Legislative Exchange Council have been suggesting state voting rules that are known to discourage minority voters – who tend to vote Democratic. One, the Voter Registration Crosscheck Program, appears to have caught Trump’s fancy, sparking his outlandish claims. Supposedly, the program keeps voters from registering in multiple states, and 30 mostly Republican states now use it. Though it flagged some 7.2 million voters, it actually found only four cases of mutiple registration, according to the non-partisan Voting News. At the same time, it is suspected of causing thousands of ballots to be impropertly invalidated.
“If President Trump has evidence of voter fraud at the scale he’s alleging, he should please bring it forward,” Padilla said Thursday. So far the only fraud seems to be coming from the Oval Office. In less than a week, Trump has gone from little lies about his inaugural crowd to big ones like this. At some point we must quit rolling our eyes and recognize there could be a more sinister intent.
This story was originally published January 26, 2017 at 12:29 PM with the headline "What’s real reason behind Trump’s lies?."