CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Attacks on Mail-In Voting Are Attacks on the Working Class

Photograph Source: Chris Phan (Clipdude) – CC BY 2.5

Donald Trump loathes mail-in voting — except, of course, when he uses this method to cast his own ballot, as he did in a recent Florida special election.

Frustrated by Congressional inaction, Trump issued an executive order last week to restrict what he likes to call “mail-in cheating.” Actual proven cases of mail voting fraud? Those amount to a whopping 0.000043 percent of total mail ballots, according to Brookings experts.

Trump’s real fear: that vote by mail gives Democrats an edge. In reality, broad, cross-partisan swaths of our electorate benefit from access to this convenient means of exercising our most basic democratic right.

Low-income Americans of all political stripes have a particularly large stake in defending our existing patchwork of mail voting systems – and in efforts to make this option universal.

Economic hurdles to voting

Economic hurdles to election participation drop when people can fill out their ballots at their kitchen table and pop them in a mailbox.

For one thing, you don’t have to worry about ticking off your boss by asking for time off to go to the polls. Currently, only 21 states require employers to give their workers paid leave for voting, and........

© CounterPunch