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Lawyer Normal William Barr recommended folks’s ballots could possibly be stolen from mailboxes (File)
Washington:
Lawyer Normal William Barr on Sunday assailed using mail-in ballots in US elections, saying they may “open the floodgates of potential fraud.”
His remark, in an interview with Fox Information, echoed repeated assertions by President Donald Trump warning US states, with out proof of serious previous issues, in opposition to utilizing mail-in ballots within the November elections.
At a time of “intense division within the nation,” Barr mentioned mail-in ballots may “open the floodgates of potential fraud” and undermine public confidence in an election’s end result.
He recommended that folks’s ballots could possibly be stolen from mailboxes — and even that some overseas energy may print up “tens of hundreds of counterfeit ballots” to sway the result.
Election consultants have been skeptical of such claims.
Many states and localities have used mail-in ballots for years, with little proof of greater than remoted issues. And abroad Individuals and army troops posted overseas have voted by mail with no severe complaints of fraud.
However the follow has drawn shut scrutiny this yr.
Voting and the virus
With main elections coming within the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, polling stations in a number of states have seen voters standing in lengthy strains for hours, partly due to social distancing.
The political impression of mail-in voting shouldn’t be solely clear.
There was hypothesis that it’d favor Democrats, as some lower-income voters may need extra bother making it to polling locations than wealthier Republicans. However mail-in ballots are additionally widespread in some rural areas the place Trump is robust.
A Stanford College examine final month of the impression of mail-in voting in elections since 1996 concluded that the follow results in a modest enhance in total turnout however “doesn’t seem to extend both celebration’s vote share.”
The president’s sharp criticism has imparted a political spin to the talk.
In one in all his all-capitals Twitter posts final month, Trump wrote that “MAIL-IN VOTING WILL LEAD TO MASSIVE FRAUD AND ABUSE. IT WILL ALSO LEAD TO THE END OF OUR GREAT REPUBLICAN PARTY.”
Barr’s protection of that argument fueled new criticism that he has gone past the normal function of an legal professional common to serve, as some Democrats put it, because the president’s private lawyer.
Weaponizing the DOJ
Final month Twitter twice took the uncommon step of cautioning readers about Trump’s posts on mail-in voting, linking to a CNN article saying the president’s claims of fraud had been unsubstantiated.
Some Democratic critics have speculated that Trump, who warned earlier than his shock 2016 election victory that the vote could be “rigged,” was laying the groundwork for a authorized battle in case he loses to Democrat Joe Biden.
Biden leads in latest opinion polls, together with in some key states, whereas Trump’s assist has slipped steadily amid criticism of his dealing with of the coronavirus pandemic and of racial tensions.
Vanita Gupta, a former head of the Justice Division Civil Rights Division and the CEO of a rights group, mentioned on Twitter that “Barr is organising weaponizing the DOJ to problem a Trump loss in Nov based mostly on lies about legit voting strategies. He needs to be impeached.”
In truth, Trump himself voted by mail-in poll within the 2018 midterm elections, after altering his voter registration from New York to Florida.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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