February 26, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 35 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session
VOTER FRAUD; Congressional Record Vol. 165, No. 35
(Senate - February 26, 2019)
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[Pages S1447-S1448] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] VOTER FRAUD Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, on a final matter, anyone who has been attentive to the news these past few days has learned about the complete debacle that unfolded in last November's election for North Carolina's Ninth Congressional District. Soon after election day, allegations of illegal ballot harvesting and vote tampering clouded a close result. The wrongdoing seemed to have benefited the Republican candidate over the Democratic. Just last week, we saw the State Board of Elections unanimously call for a new election. For years and years, every Republican who dared to call for commonsense safeguards for Americans' ballots [[Page S1448]] was demonized by Democrats and their allies. We were hit with leftwing talking points that insisted that voter fraud was not real--it never happens, they said--that fraud just didn't happen and that modest efforts to ensure that voters are who they say they are and are voting in the proper places were really some sinister, rightwing plot to prevent people from voting. As you might expect, now that an incident of very real voter fraud has become national news and the Republican candidate seems to have benefited, these longstanding Democratic talking points have been really quiet. We haven't heard much lately from the Democrats about how fraud never happens. They have gone silent. Now some are singing a different tune. There is a new interest in ensuring the sanctity of American elections. I have been focused for decades on protecting the integrity of elections, so I would like to welcome my friends on the left to their new realization. They have just discovered that this subject really matters, but I have yet to see any evidence that they are actually interested in cleaning up the conditions that lead to messes like this one in North Carolina. At the root of the North Carolina debacle is a practice that is known as ballot harvesting. Essentially, it is a means by which campaign representatives can collect absentee ballots on the premise of delivering them to a polling place or an election office. That is what ballot harvesting is. So think about it. Who in American politics keeps long lists of potential voters? Who mobilizes networks of people to go door-to-door? Who funds and stands up to these kinds of canvassing organizations? Who does those things? I am sorry to say that there are not huge teams of politically neutral Eagle Scouts who rove the country and hope to use ballot harvesting to politely make voters' lives more convenient. This is not an Eagle Scout activity. The folks who really lick their lips at the prospect of mass ballot harvesting are political operatives, of course--political operatives, interest groups, and one-sided political machines. This is why many jurisdictions, including in North Carolina, have outlawed the practice altogether. I will say that again. Many jurisdictions, including in North Carolina, have outlawed this practice altogether. Ballot harvesting threatens to change the nature of our representative democracy. Forget about persuading people and spurring them to turn out to the polls; this practice makes elections a kind of scavenger hunt to see which side's operatives can return to headquarters with the most ballots in the trunks of their cars, and once those operatives take ahold of these ballots, the voters have no way to keep tabs on whether they were ever delivered. Of course, a system that invites political operatives to be rewarded for turning up ballots will open the door to misbehavior. Remember, it is illegal in North Carolina and in most States for the obvious reason, but I have noted with interest that the Democrats' new focus on this practice has yet to extend to California. I wonder why. Well, in California, it is legal. It is a common practice in California. California allows anyone--not just family members but anyone--to show up at polling places on election day with ballots that are not theirs. Welcome to California. Reports suggest that Orange County alone saw--listen to this--250,000 absentee ballots dropped off on election day last year. The county's registrar told the newspaper that some individuals dropped off hundreds of other people's ballots. We have no way to know if those ballots were sealed or if the people had even voted when they were harvested. The only evidence we have that the voter cast his or her ballot is the signature. This past election cycle turned out favorably for California Democrats, amazingly enough. These late-arriving ballots seemed to help turn several races their way. Maybe this helps explain why: When House GOP leaders expressed concern over ballot harvesting in California, the State's Democratic secretary of state mocked their concern by saying: ``What they call strange and bizarre we call democracy.'' Now ballot harvesting has thrown out an election result in the U.S. House of Representatives--legal in California, illegal in North Carolina. Maybe that helps explain why, as it stands, the Democrat Politician Protection Act--Speaker Pelosi's massive new Federal takeover of the way States and communities run their elections--contains no effort whatsoever to crack down on ballot harvesting. It is not in there. Instead, it contains provision after provision that would erode the protections that are supposed to ensure votes reflect the voices of the voters whose names are on the envelopes. It contains provision after provision that would erode the protections that are supposed to ensure that votes reflect the voice of the voter whose name is on the envelope. Provision after provision would erode commonsense protections and bring the guardrails down. So would a serious reform bill aimed to take away States' abilities to impose meaningful ID or signature requirements for voters. Would someone concerned about restoring democracy dismiss signature verification as an obstacle to be removed? I don't think so. Perhaps these facts signal that Democrats see a political advantage in eroding commonsense protections and would rather keep that advantage than make episodes like the North Carolina mess less likely to happen in the future. An example of real-live voter fraud is staring the country right in the face right now in North Carolina. Yet Democrats choose at this moment to propose a sprawling Federal takeover of election law that would erode the integrity of our elections even further. So that, I think, pretty well underscores what the priorities of today's Democrat Party is. ____________________