GOP tries to 'correct the narrative' on use of mailed ballots after years of conflicting messages

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: AP

Updated 12:06 AM EDT, May 17, 2024


Marta Moehring voted the way she prefers in Nebraska’s Republican primary Tuesday — in person, at her west Omaha polling place. She didn’t even consider taking advantage of the state’s no-excuse mail-in ballot process. In fact, she would prefer to do away with mail-in voting altogether. She’s convinced fraudulent mailed ballots cost former President Donald Trump a second term in 2020. “I don’t trust it in general,” Moehring, 62, said. “I don’t think they’re counted correctly.”

But now Republican officials — even, sometimes, Trump — are encouraging voters such as Moehring to cast their ballots by mail. The GOP has launched an effort to, in the words of one official, “correct the narrative” on mail voting and get those who were turned off to it by Trump to reconsider for this year’s election.

The push is a striking change for a party that amplified dark rumors about mail ballots to explain away Trump’s 2020 loss, but it is also seen as a necessary course correction for an election this year that is likely to be decided by razor-thin margins in a handful of swing states.

“We have to get right on using these mail-in ballots for the people who can’t get there on Election Day,” Rep. Scott Perry, one of Trump’s strongest congressional allies in his push to overturn the 2020 election, said at a conservative gathering in his home state of Pennsylvania.

Republicans once were at least as likely as Democrats to vote by mail, but Trump changed the dynamics in 2020. He preemptively began to argue that mail balloting was bad months before voting began in the presidential race.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/trump-republicans-rnc-mailed-ballots-voting-759f2277e00532dedaaa93e17f7329a1

[DownriverDem]

1. Then why

is Lara Trump & the RNC suing Michigan for our mail in voting laws.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. We still have loons here in the PA legislature

who want to repeal "Act-77", which authorized "no excuse absentee ballots" (mail ballots). And you had PA congressional jackasses like Scott Perry (R) (PA-10) parroting the "fraud" crap - https://www.witf.org/2022/06/09/how-scott-perry-promoted-election-lies-between-election-day-and-january-6/

[IronLionZion]

2. Too late, GOP screwed themselves with that one

That party has a lot of elderly people who might prefer mail in ballots. It's like Trump wants to lose and take down their whole party with him.

[slightlv]

8. I wonder how many elderly are still clinging to the Repubs, tho...

We've been around a lot longer (obviously) and have been witness to what they've done to strip rights and liberties away from people altogether, or change them to make them harder for the people to exercise. We've also got more time to think critically, and most of us hail from a time when critical thinking was not only talked about, but also taught in the schools. Not to mention, a good many of us have served in the military.

I don't think Repugs can take us for granted any longer. A good many of us (if not a majority) live from one SS check to the next, with very little to supplement it. Take that away, and you'll see the suicide rate go up exponentially.

We're also not ready to give our country over to Communist Russia. We see the handwriting on the wall of *rump making us nothing more than one of Russia's satellite countries, and we're determined not to let that happen.

I may be wrong... and my fairly large group of "elderly" friends (over the age of 60) might be an exception. But if we are, we're one hell of a vocal exception.

[IronLionZion]

9. Here some data from the last few presidential elections

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/06/30/behind-bidens-2020-victory/

Trump's biggest support block is people over 65.

I hope that we can get some of them to switch to Biden. GOP has been attacking Biden's age way too much, which can backfire with older voters. GOP wants to destroy SS and Medicare but they always claim that it would be for screwing future generations, not current retirees.

[slightlv]

16. That screwing future generations and not "me"

has got to be the dumbest form of thinking there is for these folks! The GOP won't hesitate to rip it all out from the roots starting with the following months payments!

I guess I'm lucky enough to have a large circle of friends around my age who think critically. It really is a shame, for all the reasons I mentioned. I guess they're Fox-newsified; thus, lost to whatever reality they might have left in their bubble.

[NanaCat]

14. The elderly in the US are whiter than other age demographics

COVID cut some of their numbers, but probably not enough for them to stop being majority traitor GQP. Democrats can't count on them for victory.

We need to shore up the minority vote. We especially need to GOTV suburban women, because they are the key to the Democrats flipping the House and holding the Senate in November.

[k55f5r]

15. That's Oligarch Russia, the wall went down in the '80s.n/t

[BradBo]

3. Yup, too late. Trump will trash their message.

Thats the one good thing about Trump. He ruined his guaranteed re-election in 2020 by opening his big mouth about COVID. Hopefully he makes the same poor choices this year and ruins his chances. Even as the GOP tries to steal the election.

[Evolve Dammit]

5. Magats just continue to subvert, undermine

Create mistrust and sow as much doubt as possible. Generational.

[pecosbob]

6. Yeah, like they corrected the narrative on COVID.

Encouraging their base to commit suicide by viral infection seems to have worked out well for them...not.

[kimbutgar]

7. This will mess up dejoys plan to sabotage mail in ballots for the orange monster!

[live love laugh]

10. Why the 180? It's suspicious just like everything else Republicans do.

[BumRushDaShow]

11. Because unlike many urban areas

like here in Philly, where a polling location is no more than about 1 mile from a resident's dwelling within a polling "division" (mine is about 4 blocks from where I live and in my previous residence, was actually in the basement of the apartment building), the very rural areas often have to travel to a "County Seat" if their nearest town doesn't have a polling location.

I.e., "mail ballots" are really a convenience for the rural areas and for those who are unable to travel (elderly, disabled, under medical care, without transportation, out-of-town, etc).

And statistically, even though Democrats tend to use them more where they are available, here in Philly, 2/3rds of the voters STILL voted "in person".

[LiberalFighter]

12. If they don't like them. Then why do Republican states have them?

[BumRushDaShow]

13. Shhh.....

When the GOP passed Act-77 here in PA that authorized it, it was in exchange for getting rid of the "straight party ticket" voting option that they whined about was used by Democrats to shut them out of the row offices. Now they have been trying to repeal Act-77 but they no longer control the state House so....

[Mawspam2]

17. Here is a conspiracy theory they'll buy...

...Mail in ballots are used by the IRS to trigger audits!