With over 100,000 Americans dead at the hands of the virus that's upended daily life in the United States, locals are scrambling for a way to allow their citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote without being forced to risk their health in long voting lines and packed polling places.
The most common suggestion is the expansion of remote voting efforts, such as mailing absentee ballots to each citizen, rather than an application. But President Donald Trump and his ilk insist that the ability to vote by mail shouldn't be expanded.
The President stepped up this opposition in recent days with lengthy Twitter rants against the practice, even prompting Twitter to fact check his claims—much to his chagrin.
Lower voter turnout tends to benefit Republicans, so it's clear why Trump hopes to discourage mail-in voting.
The official position of the Trump administration is that mail-in—or absentee voting as it is called in the five states that don't already do all voting by mail—is only permissible when someone cannot get to the polls in person.
As the President's latest White House Press Secretary, Kayleigh McEnany has repeatedly echoed this position.
Interestingly enough, McEnany herself has voted by mail 11 times in the past 10 years. Like the President, Kayleigh is a resident of Florida, which allows its citizens to vote by mail without having to provide a reason.
McEnany was asked about the hypocrisy on Fox News.
FOX: How can we be assured your votes were counted accurately but when other people do it, it's fraud?
MCENANY: Every American is entitled to vote the way I did if you are…out of state…[Trump is] not for mass mail-in voting.
(Florida allows mail-in voting for all residents) pic.twitter.com/XnpLSe46Tf
— JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) May 28, 2020
McEnany claimed that she was traveling when casting her mail-in ballots, but that Democrats were asking for the automatic mailing of ballots to every citizen in the United States. Like they already do in Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Utah.
People weren't buying her distinction.
That didn't stop people from trying to cover for her.
A recent report showed that Trump was at his resort in Florida during the state's early voting period. Nevertheless, he voted by mail in its primary.
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