Stefanik joins Trump's call for an end to voting by mail

Yahoo

7 hours ago

Aug. 19—President Donald J. Trump and Rep. Elise M. Stefanik want to end the practice of voting by mail and the use of digital counting machines, both claiming without evidence that the practices are insecure and subject to significant fraud.
"I am going to lead a movement to get rid of mail-in ballots, and also, while we're at it, highly 'inaccurate,' very expensive and seriously controversial voting machines," Trump said in a lengthy post.
The president, who has long raised unfounded conspiracies that the 2020 election was fraudulently influenced to elect his opponent Joseph R. Biden, said that the U.S. is the only country in the world to use voting by mail, which is not true, and said he would sign an executive order aimed at ending the practice of mail-in voting before the 2026 midterm elections.
Trump claimed that the states have to serve as "agents" of the federal government in vote counting efforts, following federal guidelines when they are set.
"I, AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, WILL FIGHT LIKE HELL TO BRING HONESTY AND INTEGRITY BACK TO OUR ELECTIONS," Trump said, using all-capital letters. "THE MAIL-IN BALLOT HOAX, USING VOTING MACHINES THAT ARE A COMPLETE AND TOTAL DISASTER, MUST END, NOW!"
Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, a longtime Trump ally, added her voice in support of that effort quickly after. She shared a screenshot of the Truth Social post and added her own comments from her personal X, formerly Twitter, account.
"I stand strong with (Donald Trump) in his mission to make elections safe and secure," Stefanik said. "New York's elections have well-documented issues across the board, the outdated voter rolls and the lack of ballot integrity on the mass unregulated mail-in ballots. It must be fixed."
Stefanik has taken issue with mail-in balloting in New York and nationally for years. She sought to overturn the election results from multiple U.S. states in 2021 ahead of Biden's inauguration because they had moved to expand mail-in voting. Then, the congresswoman argued that states had improperly opened up mail-in voting in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but her efforts to overturn individual state results were unsuccessful.
Stefanik was also prominent in killing a late 2021 ballot measure that would have expanded mail-in voting in New York, an effort Democrats supported that ultimately did not get support from a majority of voters. When the state moved to expand mail-in voting another way, Stefanik took it to court in a lawsuit that was ultimately tossed.
In New York and other states that allow people to vote by mail, information is checked against existing voter rolls and ballots are verified by signature-matching their outer envelopes to the signature the board of elections has on file for the voter. The check process is largely the same for standard mail-in ballots and absentee ballots, which are also sent by mail but can only be used by people who are physically incapable of making it to the polls.
In the decades New York has accepted absentee ballots, and the few years the state has accepted wider mail-in ballots, no evidence of significant fraud has been found.
Stefanik, unlike Trump, has not vocally opposed the use of digital counting machines for ballots cast in person. Those machines grew in popularity throughout the 2010s, and election experts maintain they are not widely subject to hacking or security vulnerabilities. In New York, election officials audit their machines each year. In most states that use digital voting machines including New York, paper ballots marked by the voter remain available for a hand count in all cases.
Stefanik did back another policy, not explicitly mentioned by Trump in his Tuesday post, to require photo ID for people to cast their votes.
"You have to show ID to buy alcohol, rent an apartment, purchase tobacco products, apply for welfare, fly on a plane and rent a car," Stefanik said. "It's common sense to require a photo ID to vote."
Stefanik's position garnered the attention of Gov. Kathleen C. Hochul, who responded on social media. Stefanik is gearing up to potentially run against Hochul next year, and the two politicians have started paying much closer attention to one another in recent weeks.
"Our service embers risk their lives abroad and vote by mail," Hochul said. "Seniors rely on vote-by-mail. Students vote by mail to make their voices heard. Elise Stefanik wants to silence them. Shameful."