The Trump White House Doesn't Want Untainted Elections

It opposes the Secure Elections Act because it's not interested in secure elections.

President Donald J. Trump
The Washington PostGetty Images

For a while, it looked like the Secure Elections Act was the safest vote in the Congress. It was introduced by Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, nobody's idea of a liberal, and co-sponsored by Democrats Kamala Harris of California and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who are practically everybody's idea of liberals.


It was priced to move. Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, and chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, was scheduled to mark up the bill on Wednesday. Except that he didn't. From Yahoo! News:


The "principles of federalism." As though the president* has the faintest clue what they are.

Lankford, second right, with members of the Senate Intelligence Committee
Alex WongGetty Images

Tell me again about how the Republicans in the Senate are standing up to the band of brigands in this administration*. Blunt's gone to ground, and he's yet to explain why he bailed on the mark-up. Mitch McConnell's dark hand is probably involved in this somewhere. As for the president*, well, we know where he stands, even if he doesn't, because he doesn't know anything about anything and lies about it anyway.


Even prior to Blunt's taking a dive, the SEA was being criticized by election security experts as being a watered down version of what it should have been, and what it originally was. But that's no explanation for why it wasn't even sent to the floor for a vote. To the credit of his sponsors, particularly Lankford, who has been a rock on this issue, and whose voice in his party is a lonely one, they're going to keep pushing. But this White House doesn't want untainted elections, and it never has, and, in that, it is a very Republican administration* indeed.

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