Steve the Wall Street Journal Steve the Wall Street Journal, raising questions over the Rhode Island, legislative, primary results amid claims of ballot, harvesting state, Senator SAM Bell, accusing challenger and fellow Democrat Joanne Ryan of election fraud and praying on seniors and the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board says Rhode. Islands. Senior ballot harvest could be a case study in the future of voting lets bring in Wall Street Journal Editorial Board. Member and Fox NEWS contributor Bill Mcgurn Bill Good Morning to you good morning. Steve lets start at the beginning. What is ballot harvesting? Well, its basically other people going out and getting the ballot to voters, but you know doing it in a way where they influence the vote. In this case, there was an incumbent, a state, Senator SAM Bell, and he accused his opponent of going into public

housing where there were seniors and so forth, not telling the residents that she and her staff you know, were working for her campaign and then collecting their votes, which was all legal under Rhode, island law. As far as I understand but looked kind of smelly. In this case, the person accused of cheating lost by thirty percent, so it ended up, not mattering, but you can imagine this multiplied throughout the country on election day and its a real its a mess, because even if people dont cheat, if it leaves the public with the idea that the election is tainted, thats very corrupting as well Steve its one thing, you know and a lot of people dont understand this, but its one thing. If you write to your county Board of election Supervisors- and you say- hey im going to be out of town or for whatever reason, because of covid, I would like a mail in ballot. I would like an absentee ballot. People have been doing that forever, but its another thing for a state to say: do you know

what were just going to mail? Everybody on our list, a ballot and the problem is a lot of people have no idea that that was coming and then may not have had any interest in filling it out. It winds up right there at the post box. Next thing you know, the worry is that there be some shenanigans going on. Well, as you point out, the difference is yes: weve had elections by mail, I think some states have all election by mail, but theyve been doing it for a long time were putting these massive changes in look at what happened during the democratic primary. When so many states could not give the results. That night, I mean its sort of incredible for me to look that we have so much so many advances in technology and identity technology. You look, how Apple Iphone protects the phone. You do. Your transactions on Amazon, youre,

not worried about your credit card, and we cant do the same for something as elementary as balloting. In this case, particularly the courts intervened and the courts created this problem. Well, the courts didnt create it, but they got a consent decree the progressive groups to do away with the requirement that you have some witnesses for people signing their ballots. So this is just to be expected Steve Bill dont. You feel that, given the fact that the president has been complaining about this and hes worried about the results and its going to be unfair and the Democrats are just trying to steal the election with their shenanigans, he essentially has said dont, you think, on election day on November three. This is going to at the end of the day they are looking at, who actually showed up, and Republicans probably will have showed up in much greater number s, because they just wanted to make sure that their vote counted.

Im. Not sure about that. I mean, I think, that theres a great unknown look. I think one reason a lot of people dont take it seriously is because President Trump does, if he says so, many people have to say b, but I think again, its very corrupting people need to have confidence in their results and also the other big factor in all of this is so many races, including the presidential race, are going to be so tight in two thousand and sixteen. I think it was ten thousand votes in Wisconsin and forty four thousand in Pennsylvania thats for president, and then you multiply this through all these different races. The margins are so tight, so it doesnt take that much cheating to change the outcome and people are not going to have confidence in it. I think Steve we didnt even talk about the Post office and the suggestion that they could lose a bunch of them. Oh well, something for another day bill mcgurn. Thank you very much for.