Love, Joy, Feminism
So much has happened in the past week. I’ve watched in dismay as Trump has signed executive orders and gagged federal employees. I can’t cover everything, but I did want to draw attention to a specific piece I noticed—and to see what we can learn from it. Trump has promised to launch an investigation into voter fraud, and especially into his claims that millions of illegal immigrants voted in last year’s election.
Here’s this, from the transcript of Trump’s interview with ABC:
DAVID MUIR: You say you’re gonna launch an investigation.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Sure, done.
DAVID MUIR: What you have presented so far has been debunked. It’s been called false.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, it hasn’t. Take a look at the Pew reports.
DAVID MUIR: I called the author of the Pew report last night. And he told me that they found no evidence of voter fraud.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Really? Then why did he write the report?
DAVID MUIR: He said no evidence of voter fraud.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Excuse me, then why did he write the report?
What is this Pew report? It’s this.
Inaccurate, Costly, and Inefficient: Evidence That America’s Voter Registration System Needs an Upgrade
Our democratic process requires an effective system for maintaining accurate voter registration information. Voter registration lists are used to assign precincts, send sample ballots, provide polling place information, identify and verify voters at polling places, and determine how resources, such as paper ballots and voting machines, are deployed on Election Day. However, these systems are plagued with errors and inefficiencies that waste taxpayer dollars, undermine voter confidence, and fuel partisan disputes over the integrity of our elections.
Voter registration in the United States largely reflects its 19th-century origins and has not kept pace with advancing technology and a mobile society. States’ systems must be brought into the 21st century to be more accurate, cost-effective, and efficient.
Research commissioned by the Pew Center on the States highlights the extent of the challenge:
- Approximately 24 million—one of every eight—voter registrations in the United States are no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate.
- More than 1.8 million deceased individuals are listed as voters.
- Approximately 2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state.
Meanwhile, researchers estimate at least 51 million eligible U.S. citizens are unregistered, or more than 24 percent of the eligible population.
The report uses the term “fraud” exactly once:
The inability of this paper-based process to keep up with voters as they move or die can lead to problems with the rolls, including the perception that they lack integrity or could be susceptible to fraud.
There is nothing in the report—literally nothing—about voter fraud.
In his interview, Trump asks why the report was written, if there was no evidence of voter fraud. You need only to read the report to answer the question, which I am convinced Trump has not. The report raises numerous problems, such as voters being purged from voter rolls after not voting in several elections, or voters moving and assuming that their registration would switch automatically (it does not). At issue is a general lack of efficiency that costs taxpayers money, takes up an excess of election officials’ time, and leaves eligible voters inadvertently without access to the polls.
Trump’s response, in the end, was as follows:
PRESIDENT TRUMP: According to Pew report, then he’s — then he’s groveling again. You know, I always talk about the reporters that grovel when they wanna write something that you wanna hear but not necessarily millions of people wanna hear or have to hear.
The report was not authored by a reporter.
Out of everything going on right now, why am I calling attention to this seemingly small piece? Because, in some small way, I find it illustrative of what is going on right now. There is a complete disregard of facts. There is also a lack of reading, and a lack of interest in actual understanding.
The Pew report Trump called attention to is indeed an interesting one, and it raises important points about inefficiencies in our voter registration system. I’ve heard these points made by others, too—for instance, some have argued (and persuasively) that we should have universal voter registration, so that you don’t have anyone prevented from voting because they didn’t register in time. And yet, we have a president who is insisting (in blatant disregard of reality) that the Pew report is about voter fraud (it is not). Indeed, the report doesn’t mention anything about undocumented immigrants voting, which is central to Trump’s completely unverified claims about voter fraud.
There’s another piece of this, too—Trump won the election. Why continue to make claims about voter fraud? Trump has claimed, for example, that he would have won the popular vote if “millions” of undocumented immigrants had not voted illegally (all for Hillary, he says). This isn’t about efficiency or about ensuring our election system runs well. If it were, he would know what the Pew report actually says. It’s not even about party politics at this point; Paul Ryan and others have called his allegations ridiculous. No, my friends. It’s about ego.
As we enter a Trump administration, there are quite a few things we’re going to have to bear in mind. One is that facts do not matter to Trump. Reality does not matter. He has proven his willingness and ability to stand in front of the press and lie blatantly and nonstop. Another thing we will have to remember is that Trump is not going to act like any president we have had in living memory. Time spent trying to rationalize his actions into something that makes sense to us is time wasted.
This is not normal, but it is what we have to expect for the next four years.
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