President Trump picked a new fight with Nevada Monday, threatening to go to court to stop a plan to mail ballots for the November election to voters.
The threat came in an early morning Twitter post, after the Nevada legislature, voting on party lines, passed a bill to ensure that every voter in the state automatically receive a ballot. Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, is expected to sign it.
Democrats say the intent is to reduce in-person voting due to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.
Trump responded with characteristic fury, calling the bill “an illegal late night coup” that will make it “impossible for Republicans to win the state.”
Trump referred to Sisolak as a “clubhouse governor.”
And he took aim at one of his favorite targets, the U.S. Postal Service: “Post Office could never handle the Traffic of Mail-In Votes without preparation,” Trump tweeted. “Using Covid to steal the state. See you in Court!”
But it’s unclear what Trump — or any president — could do to force a state to alter its voting rules, since the U.S. Constitution grants the states the power to set voting requirements.
“The President’s threat on Monday echoes his similarly explosive reaction in May when Nevada sent its voters mail-in ballots for its June primary elections,” notes Talking Points Memo.
“At the time, Trump accused state lawmakers of trying to ‘cheat’ and vowed to ‘hold up funds’ from the Silver State as punishment.” But nothing actually happened.
Trump’s motive, now and before, is his struggle to win a second term.
“Nevada is one of the few states won by Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016 that the Trump campaign thinks could be competitive in 2020,” says The Hill. “Minnesota and New Hampshire are two other Trump targets.”
Assuming Sisolak signs the bill into law, Nevada will become the 8th state with automatic vote-by-mail policies.
“Trump has aggressively advocated for in-person voting in recent months even as state-level election officials move expand mail-in voting amid the coronavirus pandemic, which many fear could be easily spread at polling places,” says Politico.
Trump claims voting by mail will lead to election fraud, which is in fact very rare in the U.S., regardless of the method used to cast ballots.
That’s contrary to most expert assessments; even “Republican political operatives have embraced vote-by-mail, and a recent study found that it does not benefit one party over another,” Politico says.
Nevada Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro (D-Las Vegas), blasted Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Convention, after McDaniel tweeted that Democrats were looking to “create more opportunities for fraud and allow ballot harvesting,” reports the Las Vegas Sun.
“I’ll be damned if I’m going to let a partisan hack like you use this pandemic to suppress Nevadans’ right to vote,” Cannizzaro tweeted. “Nevada will have a free, fair and secure election this November.”