Should Americans be worried as Democrats continue to push mail-in voting?
Fox News contributor Deroy Murdock, contributing editor for the National Review Online, joins 'Fox & Friends Weekend.'
A voting booth should be as confidential as a confessional. A mail-in ballot is wide open to filial force, peer pressure, and workplace bullying. Yet, now crooked Democrats demand this 7th inning rule change nationwide.
Back in March 2018, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speculated that she lost for president because nasty men, who hate her, forced women to support Donald J. Trump.
Democrats “don’t do well with married, white women,” Clinton said. “And part of that is an identification with the Republican Party, and a sort of ongoing pressure to vote the way that your husband, your boss, your son, whoever believes you should.”
WSJ EDITORIAL BOARD: RHODE ISLAND'S SENIOR BALLOT HARVEST
Clinton’s claim generated derisive laughter and a well-deserved sense that she believes women cannot think for themselves.
This was an appropriate response, given that any female who suffered such grave political oppression at the hands of her husband, or live-in tormentor/boyfriend, could say she backed Trump, enter the voting booth, pull the lever for Clinton, and then lie to her abuser and say that she picked Trump.
But Clinton’s point is not entirely baseless.
Just as some men beat women, others tell them how to vote. (And some henpecked men surely suffer likewise.)
As long as local precincts let people vote in secret, however, such embattled Americans can escape such relationship woes and privately endorse the candidates and causes they choose, not those inflicted upon them.
Alas, universal mail-in ballots bomb this safe harbor to smithereens.
“Unfortunately, survivors of intimate partner violence may be unable to make their voices heard in November due to barriers in the voting process, including fear of potential retaliation,” the liberal Center for American Progress’ Danielle Root wrote in 2018.
“And for survivors who vote absentee and thus complete their ballots at home, voter privacy may be more difficult to guarantee, as abusers may have greater ability to access and monitor a survivor’s vote selection.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE OPINION NEWSLETTER
Imagine that Mr. Jones tells his wife, “Your mail-in ballot better say Biden, or I’ll smack you.” Mrs. Jones cannot go to the polls and cast her ballot as she wishes. Instead, that woman’s right to choose will be crushed. She will have no choice but to complete her ballot, let her live-in monster inspect it, confirm that she voted as he wanted, and then let him post it. Mrs. Jones could so little but lament her disenfranchisement.
Ditto Mr. Smith, whose wife insists on seeing if he voted “for The Donald” before grabbing his mail-in ballot, screaming, “You better have!” and then marching down to the Post Office to send it in — complete with the decisions that her suffering husband would have negated, had he voted at his local firehouse.
“COVID-19 has caused a significant increase in domestic violence cases,” says former Assemblywoman Maria Rodriguez-Gregg, R-N.J., a domestic-violence survivor.
“The ability of victims to escape or find assistance also has been dramatically reduced by the pandemic, amplifying the problem. By mandating a universal vote-by-mail scheme, victims of intimate-partner violence lose the anonymity provided by in-person voting, making them uniquely susceptible to the will of their abusers. Mass mail-in-voting thus creates another form of voter suppression that disenfranchises the abused.”
More from Opinion
Political harassers likewise could prey upon the elderly. Unscrupulous caregivers and cruel family members could perpetrate this on an individual level (“OK, Grandpa: Before you get your insulin, let’s see your ballot.”)
This already happens on an industrial scope at nursing homes. This electoral elder abuse is called “granny harvesting.”
How about America’s thoroughly politicized campuses — where Cancelistas shout down or shut down conservative speakers? Leftist dorm-mates could corner outnumbered conservatives and command them to display their votes.
Far-Right paranoia? Try to visualize a dozen College Republicans ganging up on a lone liberal for an impromptu ballot inspection. No, I cannot picture that, either.
Mass mail-in ballots also invite heavy-handed workplace tactics. Bosses or labor bosses could organize office- or factory-wide pow-wows where employees must arrive with their ballots and learn how to vote “the right way.” And for those who resist? “I was considering you for that promotion, Janet. But your ballot gives me doubts.”
“It can happen on both sides,” "Stealing Elections" author John Fund warned an Institute for Policy Innovation Zoom meeting recently. “Employers can intimidate employees. Unions can intimidate laborers.”
Coercion aside, universal mail-in ballots threaten to silence millions. The U.S. Postal Service aspires to deliver 96 percent of political mail accurately.
USPS may consider itself mission-compliant if as much as 4 percent of mail-in ballots went astray and never got tabulated. With some 80 million mail-in ballots expected in circulation, up to 3.2 million could go missing before USPS fretted.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
This Democratic formula for mass disenfranchisement could yield far more than enough misplaced or diverted ballots to reverse elections from president of the United States to the Johnson County Water Board.
Couple this terrifying reality with mass-mail-in ballots’ War on Voter Privacy, and this entire scheme becomes yet another defective product from the Democratic Party bad-idea factory.