Wall Street Journal columnist Bill McGurn weighs in on the integrity of mail-in voting being under scrutiny on ‘Fox & Friends.’
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
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.
Transcript generated on 2020-09-10.