Regarding the article “Trump admits he’s blocking postal cash to stop mail-in votes” in the August 14 edition, the “debate” over mail-in voting is preposterous, an outright non-issue — except among conspiracy-theory obsessives adrift in the Trumpiverse. The “controversy” is a farcical ruse, nothing but another daily gust of typhoon-force idiot wind roaring across Donald Distraction’s lips.
Elementary logic, research and data — which “very good brain” Trump rejects as radical-left propaganda — prove this faster than he can mispronounce Thailand or Yosemite.
First, logic: Trump’s asinine attempt to invent a difference between absentee (“fine”) and mail-in (“dishonest”) voting is patently absurd. Since all absentee ballots arrive at polling stations by mail — hello? — there isn’t any defensible distinction between the two.
Second, research: There’s no evidence of widespread U.S. mail-in voting fraud. This year, a Washington Post/Electronic Registration Information Center analysis of three mail-in-vote-only states (Colorado, Oregon and Washington) found that fraudulent votes represented a minuscule 0.0025 percent in the 2016 and 2018 general elections. Also, emasculatingly, the Voter Fraud Commission that Trump launched himself in 2017 found zero proof of 2016 election fraud — and was disbanded after eight months.
Third, data: According to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, absentee and mail-in ballots cast in the four most recent presidential elections as a percentage of total votes were: 21.4 percent (2004); 19.2 percent (2008); 25.9 percent (2012); 23.6 percent (2016). How unfair that two elections were won by Republicans and two were won by a Democrat — “Fake News Hoax!”
For Trumpketeers — ideologically immune to the Objectivity Virus — it must be flustering to see logic, research and data trump Trump’s fictions, especially since their hero voted in the August 2020 Florida state primary — by mail! To ease their exasperation, they should take solace in President Hypocrite’s recent comment about the astronomical number of U.S. COVID-19 deaths: “It is what it is.”
D.S. Monahan
Edogawa Ward, Tokyo
