To stop voter fraud, President Donald Trump is willing to go to war — in court.
The president threatened to sue Nevada’s Democratic governor on Monday after the state moved to allow universal mail-in voting this November, according to media reports.
Nevada stages “late night coup”
In a tweet Monday, Trump denounced a “late night coup” by Governor Steve Sisolak after the Nevada legislature voted to send ballots to all Nevadans, a move that Trump said would come to the expense of Republicans.
“In an illegal late night coup, Nevada’s clubhouse Governor made it impossible for Republicans to win the state,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Post Office could never handle the Traffic of Mail-In Votes without preparation. Using Covid to steal the state. See you in Court!”
Later, Trump elaborated on his worries about delayed or fraudulent results at a White House briefing, speculating that the U.S. Postal Service is not equipped to hold an election by mail and that a provision in the Nevada bill allowing more people to collect and return ballots will result in ballot harvesting.
He threatened to sue as soon as Tuesday while floating an executive order to thwart Nevada’s plans.
“I have the right to do it. We haven’t gotten there yet. We’ll see what happens,” he said.
Trump faces pushback
Trump has faced a firestorm of pushback for suggesting that the widespread use of mail-in ballots this November could lead to massive fraud.
Democrats and their allies in the media have smugly dismissed his concerns, claiming that there is no evidence to support them. They also argue that failing to provide mail ballots to every voter forces people to choose between their health and their civil rights, and that Republicans are simply afraid that they will lose if more people vote.
But mail-in voting has never been conducted at the scale being advocated, and Democrats from Barack Obama to Joe Biden have pushed aggressively to expand mail-in voting, suggesting that partisan motives are probably in play.
On Monday evening, Sisolak signed the bill into law.
“During this global pandemic, I made a commitment that we’d do all we can to allow Nevadans to safely cast a ballot in the upcoming November election,” he said.
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