Trump claimed widespread voter fraud in Tuesday’s debate. McConnell isn’t worried.
Toward the end of a kindergarten-like presidential debate Tuesday night, President Donald Trump questioned the integrity of November’s election, citing unsubstantiated concerns about voter fraud.
Trump’s concerns are not shared by U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
“My view is the post office can get the job done,” McConnell said in an interview with the Herald-Leader earlier this month. “We need to conduct the election in each state in the way that the rules are set up in that state and run your campaign accordingly.”
In Kentucky, those rules mean a lot more mail-in ballots. In August, Secretary of State Michael Adams, a Republican, and Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, came to an agreement that allows any voter to request an absentee ballot or to vote in-person for three weeks prior to the Nov. 3 election.
Already, 507,000 absentee ballots have been requested in Kentucky, according to the State Board of Elections.
Josh Douglas, an elections expert at the University of Kentucky, said Trump’s comments Tuesday on the election process were “just lies.”
“Don’t trust the president on this because he doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Douglas said.
Douglas said there is no evidence of increased voter fraud among mail-in ballots. He cited an example of a postal worker in West Virginia who was caught changing ballot requests from Democrat to Republican during the primary as an example of the system working since it caught the person committing fraud.
Amy McGrath, McConnell’s Democratic opponent, has a line in her stump speech supporting absentee voting, noting that she voted via absentee ballot for years when she was in the military and that it always worked fine.
“I have total confidence in our county clerks and the U.S. Postal Service, and everyone should feel confident casting their ballots by mail this election,” McGrath said.
McConnell has pointed out that there “are legitimate concerns about ballots being rejected,” something Trump brought up in the debate Tuesday night. But Trump wrongly claimed that 30 to 40 percent of ballots are rejected, when the number nationally is closer to 2 percent, Douglas said.
In the June primary in Fayette County, about 7 percent of mail-in ballots were rejected, according to Don Blevins, the Fayette County Clerk, largely because people did not sign or seal both of the envelopes before sending in their ballots. Elections officials have made changes they hope will result in fewer rejected ballots in the general election. This time, clerks can contact voters about such mistakes and remedy them before Election Day.
Trump’s claims about voter fraud came when he was asked what he could do to reassure people that the next president will be the legitimate winner of the election. When Trump refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power earlier this month, McConnell put out a Tweet attempting to offer assurances.
“The winner of the November 3rd election will be inaugurated on January 20th,” McConnell said. “There will be an orderly transition just as there has been every four years since 1792.”
Douglas said he was confident in the integrity of the election.
“Listen to your local election officials,” Douglas said. “Because they’re non-partisan with the goal of allowing everyone to vote.”
This story was originally published September 30, 2020 at 1:59 PM.
