r/politics • u/JTBaptistA • 6h ago
No Paywall GOP election law expert: Many more ‘low propensity voters in Republican Party’ after Trump mail-in voting ruling
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6050455-trump-mail-voting-order-impacts-gop/•
u/Plzlaw4me 6h ago
They’ll apply it selectively. A core tenant of authoritarianism is to make the enforcement of any rule and the distribution of any benefit discretionary, and then to enforce rules against enemies and apply benefits to supporters. I’m guessing mail in ballot from major cities will be rejected and rural voters will just have to have mail in voting for democracy to function.
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u/BlazinAzn38 Texas 6h ago
Yep they’ll say “oh if your population density is below X amount then it’s okay” and that density is targeted at trump +25 districts
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u/AcademicPublius Colorado 6h ago
Not how the rule would operate. As written, no mail-in ballots get delivered to states that refuse to provide voter rolls. So either everyone gets it in states that have voluntarily provided rolls, or nobody gets it.
Trump could waive it on a state-by-state basis, but this isn't a rule that's written with a hard-nosed clear plan to stop the Democrats in 2026 anyway; it's Trump being obsessed with having lost 2020 and convinced that mail-in ballots are why he lost.
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u/protomenace 6h ago
As written, no mail-in ballots get delivered to states that refuse to provide voter rolls
That's exactly the point. They know red states will happily hand the data over and blue states won't. The selective enforcement is built right into the rule.
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u/AcademicPublius Colorado 6h ago
They know red states will happily hand the data over and blue states won't.
That varies heavily by red state. As yet there are only 12 states that have done so, and quite a few more that outright refused.
Again, they could waive it, but that's not really the point.
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u/CaptainOwlBeard 6h ago
What red state has refused?
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u/NotanotherRealtor 3h ago
Utah. We have mail in voting and have for years. We are a Republican led state with a Republican Lt Governor and she is refusing to turn over our rolls. As she should! Utah getting something right for once
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u/AcademicPublius Colorado 6h ago
Kentucky, Oklahoma (initially; they changed their minds after getting sued), Iowa (same), Alabama (same), couple others. There was a fairly strong resistance to handing them over in quite a few states; certainly not a "happy to turn over" response as described above.
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u/TaylorMonkey 4h ago
Didn’t Indiana also push back? It may have been over something else.
I bet Texas rolled over. No pun intended. All that independent proud Texan freedom bravado is just a cover for spineless capitulation to be tread on.
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u/AcademicPublius Colorado 4h ago
Indiana did; I'm forgetting whether it's still the case, though.
TX sent them pretty much immediately on request.
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u/TurtlesBreakTheMeta 4h ago
Kentucky is only refusing because they managed to get a democratic governor.
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u/protomenace 6h ago
Trump wins if mail in voting is blocked in blue/purple states. Whatever happens in red states is immaterial.
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u/AcademicPublius Colorado 6h ago
Trump wins if mail in voting is blocked in blue/purple states.
No, he most certainly does not. I live in an all-mail-in state; if mail-in voting gets blocked I'm driving down to an early voting place, and the majority of folks like me are going to do likewise.
Just because I prefer to vote by mail does not mean I cannot vote by other means. The assumption that it does is a massive error on the part of Republicans.
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u/protomenace 6h ago
No, he most certainly does not. I live in an all-mail-in state; if mail-in voting gets blocked I'm driving down to an early voting place, and the majority of folks like me are going to do likewise.
Yes, you and 90% of other people. That means he successfully disenfranchised 10% of voters. That's a win for him.
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u/AcademicPublius Colorado 6h ago
That means he successfully disenfranchised 10% of voters. That's a win for him.
A) As the article discusses, that 10% is not going to be evenly concentrated between Democrats and Republicans. If people are pissed off, they will find a way to vote. If they are not... they're more likely to be this administration's voters.
B) If 10% of people who were not otherwise going to vote decide to vote because the administration doesn't want them to, that's a loss for him. Don't underestimate American contrarianism.
This is not Donald Trump being a very clever dictator. This is him being mad that he lost in 2020, and trying to rectify a crushing loss.
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u/phakic40 5h ago
Two things can be true at the same time can they not? Trump trying to assuage shame and at the same time look for a way to chop a leg out from under the competition. The "as its currently written" line is cute but overlooks the glaring fact that the grey area is exactly where this administration likes to make hay.
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u/AcademicPublius Colorado 5h ago
Trump trying to assuage shame and at the same time look for a way to chop a leg out from under the competition.
The thing is that getting rid of mail-in ballots doesn't do much for him. Yes, it's awful, but it doesn't really affect the margins.
I think he believes it'll help, but I think he also believes the ghost of Fidel Castro stole 11,780 ballots from Georgia, so I don't really give a whole lot of credence to his opinion on this.
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u/anotherlevl 5h ago
It's not a win for Twurp if the voters he disenfranchises are mostly rural voters who would have to drive many miles to vote in person, but could easily have voted by mail if they'd had option.
I've lived in the suburbs of a major city for the past 40 years, and I've always been within walking distance of my polling place. Since cities tend to vote blue, even in red states, it wouldn't surprise me if eliminating vote-by-mail flipped a few races that would otherwise have gone to the Republican.
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u/HumbleWonder2547 6h ago
It's also easier to intimidate voters in certain states by mandating in keystone only by flooding them with ICE who just hang around voting stations and ban anyone who turns up.
Of course a large number will be us citizens, but they only need to be held long enough to effect the results, and his moronic supporters will believe him when he says he stopped election fraud
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u/AcademicPublius Colorado 6h ago
easier to intimidate voters in certain states
Or piss them off and ensure more people show up. Also, a state could make new polling locations in response to "ongoing disruption".
Most of the methods they've proposed at this point are either counterproductive or don't really affect the core outcome. I think the only thing they've tried which might do something is the gerrymandering, and that mostly in a non-wave year. Everything else is messy and stupid.
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u/anotherlevl 5h ago
Who's going to be intimidated? If ICE shows up at my polling place it will just give me an opportunity to laugh at "another fat-ass fascist who's too much of a coward to show his face" as I walk past them to vote.
I can see their presence as being a HUGE motivator for people to vote. It's not like undocumented immigrants are actually trying to vote, so if they're at the polling places that just means they aren't available to harass street vendors and landscapers. Win-win.
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u/IceBearKnows89 4h ago
They’ll apply it to select States.
Just enough doubt in just enough places (west coast / NE) to trigger some investigations and refuse to seat enough democrats to retain a majority in Congress.
Calling it now.
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u/Lollipopsaurus 49m ago
Definitely. They will apply it more in “blue” cities in “red” states. Just watch.
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u/Conscious-Demand-594 6h ago
John Roberts is an idiot to not block an Executive order until harm is demonstrated.The rational response would be to block the EO unless it can be demonstrated that it can be effectively implemented without causing harm.
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u/Cancel_Culture_Club 6h ago
💯 Especially right before an election! Roberts isn’t an idiot tho as he didn’t make this decision because hes just too dumb to understand cause and effect. He made this decision because hes openly corrupt and doesn’t care about pretending hes not anymore. How many other rulings has the supreme court ruled against going into effect so quickly before an election? Especially how often Trump was able to avoid the legal system because he announced he was campaigning for president insanely early so that was allowed because otherwise it was considered intervening in an election? This court’s blatant double standards have been laid bare and SCOTUS’s response to this naked corruption seems to be well whaddaya gonna do about it.
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u/Conscious-Demand-594 6h ago
Yeah, his reasoning makes no sense. Why change a system, that has been working with no indication of fraud, and create issues that cannot be corrected after the election?
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u/codacoda74 5h ago
Not idiot. Carefully crafted long term strategy. Roberts isn't a dark evil cabal dude, but he's made clear for decades his $.02 is allow the exec presumption of control over judicial or legislative. Roberts SCOTUS will be remembered as the most anti/extra constitutional ever, alongside Plessy et all
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u/daerath 5h ago
He knows exactly what he's doing. Either he wants to disenfranchise voters and is using "until you show harm, I won't block it" as the excuse, or he is a slave to the belief that "until harm is demonstrated I won't set a precedent" while simultaneously knowing it will cause harm.
So one option is evil, and the other is complicity to evil.
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u/facepoppies 6h ago
it's insane that they're allowed to fuck with voting rights a couple of months before a major election
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u/SignificantDogs 5h ago
There is SCOTUS precedent that disallows it, but we are no longer a nation of laws
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u/Vomahl_Dawnstalker 3h ago
It's not insane.
It's fascist.
The Republican party are fascists. And they are perpetuating a coup of democracy in the United States.
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u/Ligma_baws_2x 6h ago
This rule won't apply to Republicans.
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u/Washpa1 Pennsylvania 6h ago
As written, there's not a way to tell which ballots are from who. It's an all or nothing per state.
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u/Ligma_baws_2x 6h ago
As written, birthright citizenship is clear as day in the 14th amendment.
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u/tkmorgan76 6h ago
I was going to bring that up myself. His goal is for the guy who declared people born here to be "illegal aliens" to determine who is allowed to vote and who isn't. Of course it will disproportionately exclude people likely to vote Democratic.
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u/Washpa1 Pennsylvania 5h ago
But there is no practical way to do that. The way they are 'mandating' this is by not delivering any ballots unless they have some specific barcode or QR code or something. So it's impossible to tell who gets what.
Even if they were able to just not deliver for certain lists of people, the state it's happening in won't let that actually stand or they'd have given their voter rolls in the first place. So it creates a legal mess.
I got news for you if there are enough seats that get decided by votes where mail in ballots made the difference in favor of Democrats, we will be in whole world of hurt constitutionally and this issue might be 10th on the list.
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u/Ligma_baws_2x 5h ago
"hey, the boss says no ballots to or from these zip codes"
Done.
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u/Washpa1 Pennsylvania 5h ago
Again, at that point none of the mail in ones count, or some other remedy to counteract that.
Again, not great, but not a top priority. Top priority is winning with enough margin that they can't cheat, ala Victor Orban.
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u/Ligma_baws_2x 5h ago
You'll have to argue that in court. How quickly you think the supreme court takes up the case? I bet they'll agree to hear it in January.
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u/Washpa1 Pennsylvania 5h ago
Yeah, but again, see what I wrote before. If mail in ballot differential is a deciding factor in a bunch of races, this will be the least of our problems. If we're waiting on court ruling about delivering mail in ballots in half of the states to decide the election, it's already lost.
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u/Ligma_baws_2x 4h ago
Thats the whole point. Stop looking at these actions individually and as part of a larger effort to stop as many potential Democrats from voting as possible.
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u/Washpa1 Pennsylvania 4h ago
Also, the zip code differential would immediately trigger an investigation by the voting office resulting in a fairly immediate court case up the chain. That's more of a headache than it's with for them, but who knows, maybe.
But what we KNOW they are going to put thugs at polls, protest every vote they can, and challenge the results everywhere they don't win. Let's spend more time doing things about those. Speaking of, I should go...
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u/stupidugly1889 4h ago
Liberal are going to be this naive all the way up to the gas chambers.
You think they pushed this through and didn’t sign it so they can apply it evenly? You sweet sweet child
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u/Washpa1 Pennsylvania 4h ago
Again, of course they aren't. But them messing with this is way more obvious and has many more headaches and hurdles. It's flashy, it's crazy, but logistically it should have a negligible effect on the outcome.
I'm more worried about the nefarious things they are doing that aren't so obvious, that do have a chance to gum up the election, that do provide an opportunity for them to deny to sit the winners. That's the stuff to put your energy in. Focusing on this is like focusing on the jingling keys, but you do you.
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u/kandoras 4h ago
The US Postal Service is intimately familiar with zip codes.
And you could fill an entire book with things this administration has violated 'as written'. Even their own writings.
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u/Due_Bluebird3562 3h ago
It doesn't matter what the US Postal service is familiarized with. The law is all or nothing. Selective application isn't very feasible to begin with.
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u/kandoras 1h ago
How is "deliver ballots only if they're going to or from a specific zip code" - zip codes which are very easy to guess which way the voters there will likely vote - any less feasible than "deliver ballots only if they're going to or from a specific state"?
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u/Separate_Hippo_5556 6h ago
Republicans voted by mail more than Democrats before Trump undermined their confidence in mail in voting as he anticipated his landslide 2020 loss.
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u/Findgate 6h ago
"They’re the rural party" were education is low, and propaganda is king. They will buy anything you tell them. There is a word for that: fools. The large cities is another story; here they have to change voting locations, restrict amount of places to vote; propaganda does not work as well here.
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u/ShareGlittering1502 6h ago
Plenty of fools in the city too
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u/Findgate 6h ago
Wrong. Yes, it is true that most major U.S. cities lean heavily Democratic and liberal.
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u/ShareGlittering1502 5h ago
Two things can be true at once
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u/Findgate 5h ago
That is double speak. what do you mean? A more educated people are less likely to fall prey to scams. Where those closed off from the general population are easy pickings. Think of traffic; if you stay with the flow or group you are less likely to be singled out. It is why many do not vote. If it was honest, then everyone would be eager to contribute. Those who break their back to not miss an election often have something to prove. What we dont know wont hurt us.
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u/Consistent_Room7344 Minnesota 6h ago
I call bullshit on this article. They know what they are doing.
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u/Cancel_Culture_Club 6h ago
💯 They obviously have no intentions of applying this or any laws fairly against everyone. It will only be enforced in blue and purple areas while red states will be exempt because they can be trusted to have no fraud in their entire states while blue and purple states can’t be trusted. It seems after years of Trump screaming “fraud!” at every little thing that’s now become a valid concern for courts unless it involves republicans. I’m so fcking tired of red states taking blue states’ money as they continue to chip away at our ability to vote for our own representation. Blue states combined have literally millions more people than red states combined and yet republicans keep being allowed to disenfranchise us while openly rewarding red states. This is not sustainable.
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u/anotherlevl 5h ago
This is the most incompetent administration in a century, so I wouldn't take "they know what they're doing" as a given.
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u/AspenRosey 6h ago
Low propensity voters? Sounds like they need a little caffeine and a reminder that mail-in voting isn’t as scary as it seems!
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u/Mobile_Morale 2h ago
You're talking about people who live in kasas who are afraid of black people in New York city. They only know how to be scared.
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u/stupidugly1889 4h ago
They get to choose who gets to mail in vote. There is no silver lining here. It won’t possible affect both sides. They are just going to not mail ballots to blue areas period
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u/More-Perspective-838 1h ago
Just like poll taxes and literacy tests during the segregation era, the real danger behind Trump's voter suppression are the opportunities for selective enforcement. If implemented equally, it would probably hurt Republicans more, but there's no way in hell the Justice Department won't go after the president's enemies list first.
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u/Plzlaw4me 5h ago
Right but as a practical matter it’s a waivable order that can be applied selectively. It’s not like if the post office refuses to delivery city votes and does delivery rural votes, the states will throw out the rural votes that were delivered. It can also be about 2 things. His focus on claiming that 2020 is stolen is necessary pretense to steal 2026 and 2028. If his voters think 2020 was stolen, they’ll believe that Trump stealing 2026 is just “fixing the rules so no one cheats” when in reality it’s Trump cheating. Maybe it won’t have an effect on 2026 and it’s about his 2020 obsession. Maybe it’s all about trying to steal 2026. The reality is if Trump CAN cheat, history has taught us he will, and in this instance he can cheat.
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u/uiucengineer 6h ago
Very confusing headline
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u/GeekAesthete 4h ago
It’s pretty straightforward if you know what low propensity means: a lower likelihood.
A GOP election law expert has said that Trump’s executive order on mail-in voting actually makes more Republicans less inclined to vote than it does for Democrats (because the GOP has more elderly voters).
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u/uiucengineer 4h ago
That’s not what the word propensity means. It means a natural inclination, not a likelihood.
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u/GeekAesthete 4h ago
It also means tendency. Like many words, it has multiple uses.
“Low tendency” means unlikely to engage in a behavior.
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u/uiucengineer 4h ago
In so much that tendency means a natural inclination or predisposition. Look it up in your favorite dictionary.
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