Now that former President Donald Trump has started his campaign in earnest with a sparsely-attended speech at CPAC, he’s already cooking up new schemes to undermine democracy and claw his way back to power. You may have heard the term “ballot harvesting” recently. Trump is now saying it’s OK for him to do it, because “we have no choice but to beat the Radical Left Democrats at their own game.”
If you think about it, it’s kind of a brilliant plan. Do something untoward, say you’re only doing it because the other side is doing it too. It’s a classic schoolyard tactic of “They did it first, why am I getting in trouble?” Also, what is ballot harvesting exactly?
It’s the “practice in which political operatives collect absentee ballots from voters’ homes and drop them off at a polling place or election office,” per the Committee on House Administration. The Cato Institute puts it this way: “ballot harvesting or ballot collection happens when one person gathers absentee/mail ballots from many voters – bundling, you might say – for submission at a mail or drop box.”
Why would this be a problem? Well, what if someone in authority asks for your ballot? A union steward, or a political boss, or even someone like a grandfather in your family? What if they wanted the answer quickly, and you didn’t have time to think about it? And what if someone just hands over their ballot? Obviously, the idea of a secret ballot would be compromised.
The practice is now mostly illegal, but Trump has been using it as a political weapon, saying Democrats are using it to steal elections. For the record, Trump is the only one who ever talks about people stealing elections in this country. Well, him and that walking hypocrite Kari Lake. Now Trump’s basically saying he wants to use this illegal practice because he has to.
“The radical left Democrats have used ballot harvesting to cancel out your vote and walk away with elections that they never should have won,” he said in an obvious attempt at fear-mongering and demagoguing. “They cheat and cheat and cheat like nobody’s ever cheated before.”
Does he give examples? Facts? Anecdotal evidence? No, who needs that stuff anyway. Oh and it gets better (scarier).
“In the states where ballot harvesting is still legal,” he said, “we have no choice but to beat the Democrats at their own game. It’s very simple. Either we start ballot harvesting, or you can say goodbye to our country. You can just wave goodbye.”
He knows how to talk to his base, I’ll give him that. He presents information in a very easy to understand way, and makes the stakes seem very high. He makes it sound like he cares about the country and its people, when he really cares about himself and getting power.
He’s saying he’s now going to “start harvesting ballots in the states where the left has been cheating.” So, to recap, it’s OK to cheat if the other side is cheating. This is the reality we live in. Sad!