[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 35 (Tuesday, February 26, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1447-S1448]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              VOTER FRAUD

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, on a final matter, anyone who has 
been attentive to the news these past few days has learned about the 
complete debacle that unfolded in last November's election for North 
Carolina's Ninth Congressional District. Soon after election day, 
allegations of illegal ballot harvesting and vote tampering clouded a 
close result. The wrongdoing seemed to have benefited the Republican 
candidate over the Democratic. Just last week, we saw the State Board 
of Elections unanimously call for a new election.
  For years and years, every Republican who dared to call for 
commonsense safeguards for Americans' ballots

[[Page S1448]]

was demonized by Democrats and their allies. We were hit with leftwing 
talking points that insisted that voter fraud was not real--it never 
happens, they said--that fraud just didn't happen and that modest 
efforts to ensure that voters are who they say they are and are voting 
in the proper places were really some sinister, rightwing plot to 
prevent people from voting.
  As you might expect, now that an incident of very real voter fraud 
has become national news and the Republican candidate seems to have 
benefited, these longstanding Democratic talking points have been 
really quiet. We haven't heard much lately from the Democrats about how 
fraud never happens. They have gone silent. Now some are singing a 
different tune. There is a new interest in ensuring the sanctity of 
American elections.
  I have been focused for decades on protecting the integrity of 
elections, so I would like to welcome my friends on the left to their 
new realization. They have just discovered that this subject really 
matters, but I have yet to see any evidence that they are actually 
interested in cleaning up the conditions that lead to messes like this 
one in North Carolina.
  At the root of the North Carolina debacle is a practice that is known 
as ballot harvesting. Essentially, it is a means by which campaign 
representatives can collect absentee ballots on the premise of 
delivering them to a polling place or an election office. That is what 
ballot harvesting is. So think about it. Who in American politics keeps 
long lists of potential voters? Who mobilizes networks of people to go 
door-to-door? Who funds and stands up to these kinds of canvassing 
organizations? Who does those things?
  I am sorry to say that there are not huge teams of politically 
neutral Eagle Scouts who rove the country and hope to use ballot 
harvesting to politely make voters' lives more convenient. This is not 
an Eagle Scout activity. The folks who really lick their lips at the 
prospect of mass ballot harvesting are political operatives, of 
course--political operatives, interest groups, and one-sided political 
machines. This is why many jurisdictions, including in North Carolina, 
have outlawed the practice altogether. I will say that again. Many 
jurisdictions, including in North Carolina, have outlawed this practice 
altogether.
  Ballot harvesting threatens to change the nature of our 
representative democracy. Forget about persuading people and spurring 
them to turn out to the polls; this practice makes elections a kind of 
scavenger hunt to see which side's operatives can return to 
headquarters with the most ballots in the trunks of their cars, and 
once those operatives take ahold of these ballots, the voters have no 
way to keep tabs on whether they were ever delivered.
  Of course, a system that invites political operatives to be rewarded 
for turning up ballots will open the door to misbehavior. Remember, it 
is illegal in North Carolina and in most States for the obvious reason, 
but I have noted with interest that the Democrats' new focus on this 
practice has yet to extend to California. I wonder why. Well, in 
California, it is legal. It is a common practice in California. 
California allows anyone--not just family members but anyone--to show 
up at polling places on election day with ballots that are not theirs. 
Welcome to California.
  Reports suggest that Orange County alone saw--listen to this--250,000 
absentee ballots dropped off on election day last year. The county's 
registrar told the newspaper that some individuals dropped off hundreds 
of other people's ballots. We have no way to know if those ballots were 
sealed or if the people had even voted when they were harvested. The 
only evidence we have that the voter cast his or her ballot is the 
signature.
  This past election cycle turned out favorably for California 
Democrats, amazingly enough. These late-arriving ballots seemed to help 
turn several races their way. Maybe this helps explain why: When House 
GOP leaders expressed concern over ballot harvesting in California, the 
State's Democratic secretary of state mocked their concern by saying: 
``What they call strange and bizarre we call democracy.'' Now ballot 
harvesting has thrown out an election result in the U.S. House of 
Representatives--legal in California, illegal in North Carolina.
  Maybe that helps explain why, as it stands, the Democrat Politician 
Protection Act--Speaker Pelosi's massive new Federal takeover of the 
way States and communities run their elections--contains no effort 
whatsoever to crack down on ballot harvesting. It is not in there. 
Instead, it contains provision after provision that would erode the 
protections that are supposed to ensure votes reflect the voices of the 
voters whose names are on the envelopes.
  It contains provision after provision that would erode the 
protections that are supposed to ensure that votes reflect the voice of 
the voter whose name is on the envelope.
  Provision after provision would erode commonsense protections and 
bring the guardrails down. So would a serious reform bill aimed to take 
away States' abilities to impose meaningful ID or signature 
requirements for voters. Would someone concerned about restoring 
democracy dismiss signature verification as an obstacle to be removed? 
I don't think so.
  Perhaps these facts signal that Democrats see a political advantage 
in eroding commonsense protections and would rather keep that advantage 
than make episodes like the North Carolina mess less likely to happen 
in the future.
  An example of real-live voter fraud is staring the country right in 
the face right now in North Carolina. Yet Democrats choose at this 
moment to propose a sprawling Federal takeover of election law that 
would erode the integrity of our elections even further.
  So that, I think, pretty well underscores what the priorities of 
today's Democrat Party is.

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