Trump Is Refusing To Secure U.S. Elections Until Democrats Pass Voter ID Laws

Donald Trump revived his conspiracy theories about voter fraud on Tuesday by saying he won’t budge on any election security measures unless voter ID laws are part of the discussion.

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In a tweet, the president said, “No debate on Election Security should go forward without first agreeing that Voter ID (Identification) must play a very strong part in any final agreement.”

“Without Voter ID, it is all so meaningless,” Trump added.

Trump then retweeted an April Twitter post from right-wing extremist Charlie Kirk, who suggested that California is only a blue state because of voter fraud.

Widespread voter fraud is not a real thing

Donald Trump has been beating the voter fraud drum since 2016 when he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by roughly 3 million votes.

Instead of accepting that more Americans legitimately voted for Clinton, Trump has decided to go down the conspiracy well and claim that he only won fewer votes because of widespread voter fraud – and that voter ID laws are needed to fight the “millions” of illegal votes.

But here’s the thing: widespread voter fraud doesn’t exist; multiple studies prove it.

As CNN’s Chris Cillizza pointed out last year, one such study found that there were just 31 instances of voter fraud from 2000 to 2014 – out of more than one billion total instances.

In other words, the facts completely contradict Trump’s repeated claims that voter fraud is a major problem that is helping Democrats win elections. It’s part of the reason why the president’s phony voter fraud commission failed so miserably.

If Donald Trump really wanted to secure American democracy, he would tell Mitch McConnell to allow a vote on a package of election security bills that he’s been blocking, even though it was recently revealed that Russia hacked all 50 states in 2016.

But the president won’t do that because he appears to be okay with foreign inference in American elections as long as they help him and his party.

As the latest polling indicates, he’ll need all the help he can get.

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Sean Colarossi

Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.