Thread by @AnnJacobsMKE

Whoo Nellie - this morning's mostly-all-caps anti-voting screed from the current resident of the Whitehouse is a true casserole of everyone's favorite conspiracy theories which a bunch of paranoia & authoritarianism thrown in for flavor. A brief 🧵from a swing state: 1/12

Bamboo ballots are back, baby! The "watermark" idea is based on a false claim that [somehow] bad actors are secretly printing ballots, filling them out, and substituting them for real ballots to be counted. How does this happen? Who knows! 2/12

The supposed solution to these 'bamboo ballots' is fancy paper. Oh - a private company makes that fancy paper & wants to sell it to every voting ward/precinct in the nation you say? Merely coincidence! (no idea what he means by saying the paper is "faster") 3/12

Next up is the oldie-but-goodie "the machines are to blame." Every audit of every machine nationwide has shown that the machines accurately tabulate ballots. Here in Wisconsin, we test the machines before voting, and audit them after. And they pass every time! 4/12

Without tabulators, humans would have to count the ballots. Do you know what humans are really really bad at? Tabulating ballots. It's boring, repetitive, and machines are much faster & more accurate. Especially when there are multiple races on a ballot. 5/12

Do you want results shortly after an election? The best way to make sure that does NOT happen is to have people hand-count ballots. There is no question it would take days (plural) at a bare minimum, and more likely weeks to know a victor. 6/12

Let's round out our little thread with a discussion of the Constitution. It literally (explicitly! for reals!) states that elections are up to the states to administer unless Congress passes a law that supersedes state laws. 7/12

A president does not have the ability to circumvent this constitutional requirement by executive order. Can't be done. States are not 'agents' of the federal government as to elections - they are the primary players. 8/12

Next we move on to "all mail in voting is bad." You know what voters really like? Mail in voting! It's convenient, it's easy, it helps all sort of people participate in voting. That's why 36 states have implemented it (in various forms). The electorate likes it! 9/12

You know what else? There is no greater rate of fraud for mail in ballots than in-person! What is that rate? Oh, about between 0.0003% and 0.0025% by some measures. 10/12

Finally, I have no idea what any of the above has to do with transgender people or the border or woke or women's sport. That's just sort of a litany of red-meat issues thrown into our casserole for a little extra protein I guess. 11/12

Let's see this for what it really is: An attempt to change voting going into the midterms because he's afraid the Republicans will lose so the only way to win is to try to change the rules and limit voting. And that is something we should all be concerned about. 12/12

@threadreaderapp - please unroll!