Newsweek: Donald Trump Announces Plan to Change Elections

[Dennis Donovan]

Newsweek - Donald Trump Announces Plan to Change Elections

Published Dec 06, 2024 at 5:19 AM EST
Updated Dec 06, 2024 at 1:40 PM EST
By Martha McHardy

President-elect Donald Trump has announced a sweeping plan to change the way U.S. elections are carried out.

"We need to get things straightened out in this country, including elections," he said, after accepting the "Patriot of the Year" award at a Long Island event organized by Fox Nation on Thursday. Trump, 78, accepted the award, designed to resemble the American flag, after a live performance of Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA" – the president-elect's go-to entrance song.

"We're gonna do things that have been really needed for a long time," he said. "And we are gonna look at elections. We want to have paper ballots, one day voting, voter ID, and proof of citizenship."

He went on to denounce a recent law passed in California that prohibits local governments from requiring voters to present identification when casting their ballots at the polls. "In California they just passed a law that you're not even allowed to ask a voter for voter ID. Think of that. If you ask a voter for their voter ID, you've committed a crime. We're gonna get the whole country straightened out," he said.

It isn't the first time Trump has proposed changing elections. During a speech in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in August, he proposed getting rid of mail-in ballots in favor of same day voting and voter ID laws.

"We have to get back in and we want to change it all. We want to go to paper ballots. We want to go to same-day voting. We want to go to citizenship papers, and we want to go to voter ID. It's very simple. We want to get rid of mail-in voting," he said.

According to the Brennan Center, 98 percent of counties in the United States use paper ballots. But since the Covid-19 pandemic, the U.S. has seen major shifts in how elections work, with more people than ever voting early or voting by mail. In 2024, 88,233,886 mail-in and early in-person votes were cast nationally, with 47 states now allowing some form of early voting. Meanwhile, laws requiring voter ID are on the rise, with eight states enacting voter ID laws since 2020.

/snip

[uponit7771]

1. Yeah, people were warned ... the GQP is going to go along with 90% of what Benedict Donald wants

[GoreWon2000]

2. Here it comes

No more elections. BTW, there were paper ballots in Florida in 2000 and that didn't stop W from stealing the 2000 election. I guess that's what Trump wants to go back to along with continuing to use W's Florida 2000 election theft road map..

[jimfields33]

4. We have paper ballots in Florida today,

But you don’t get any receipt or anything. Is he talking getting a receipt?

[GoreWon2000]

36. I thought Jeb got rid of paper ballots

after 2000 to get rid of the paper trail and hide the truth about who really won?

[jimfields33]

37. We fill out a ballot on paper and it goes into the machine

never to be seen again.

[GoreWon2000]

40. Exactly

That was part of the problem in 2000. Voters in heavily democratic voting Central Florida were given black pens to mark their ballots with that the ballot counting machines had not been programed to be able to read. Hence, those votes weren't counted. That's just 1 of the problems of 2000 courtesy of the election stealing Bush brothers.

[Trueblue1968]

21. He cant do that. Whiney orange butt DonOLD does not have the power to tell states what to do.

One day to vote ..... What A joke

Oregon votes by mail and you can't tell us what to do you. A$$ hole !!!

I hate Rumpy s guts.

[H2O Man]

23. The best response.

Thank you.

[Rhiannon12866]

31. How sad (and scary) it is that a prospective POTUS is so clueless about U.S. laws that he does not know this

[Solomon]

39. He don't need to know. I'm sick of people declaring what he can't do - I was one of them - only to watch

everybody let him do whatever the fuck he wants to do! Pardon my French, but I am really pissed off that this guy breaks every law, rule, policy, norm, in the book with no consequences to himself except more money and power for himself. Its the most despicable disgusting thing I've ever seen or even could have imagined! I'm done. Nothing but death will stop this shit.

[B.See]

46. Agreed. I've

stopped trusting LONG ago, in what the courts and states wouldn't allow Trump and MAGAt to do.

Imo, that's the logic of those who think we'll still have a democracy under Trump's regime.

[Mariana]

42. Who's going to tell him he can't do that?

The Supreme Court?

[0rganism]

43. This bullshit definitely *should* get wedged in the courts, but...

...if I had a dollar for every time I read or heard about some damn "thing Trump can't do" I'd be rich enough not to care.

Voting in Oregon sure was nice.

[GreenWave]

3. Further cemented with lie after lie.

In Blue cities they would have only 1 very crowded voting place with harassment assholes aplenty.

[jimfields33]

5. Why not have a couple hundred places to vote?

It’d be great to let kids off school for the day and have three hundred voting machines in the auditorium. Have each school involved.

[GreenWave]

10. I am thinking of Texas* where Mark Cuban allowed the arena to service the big city.

Can you imagine how difficult they would make it?
As far as more machines they would probably get just one for the big blue areas that constantly is down for maintenance on the only day one can vote.

* They restricted voting in that blue county to just one place.

[Irish_Dem]

13. Because then too many people could vote.

Especially people in the blue zip codes.

[Retrograde]

6. IIRC that California law

was in effect when I was still voting in person, i.e., before 2003

[Ping Tung]

7. "Freedom for supporters of the government only, for members of one party only, .....

Freedom for supporters of the government only, for members of one party only, no matter how big its membership may be is, no freedom at all. Freedom is always freedom for the man who thinks differently.

Rosa Luxemburg

[Wounded Bear]

8. Has he run that plan past Putin yet?

Wish I was joking.

[Irish_Dem]

14. Putin faxed him this plan yesterday.

[RedWhiteBlueIsRacist]

9. The USA, soon to be a White-bred (sic) Banana Sandwich Republic

under trump and his flying monkeys.

[get the red out]

11. Proof of citizenship

Or proof of donations to the Republican party, white skin, and male.

Show me your papers!

[Irish_Dem]

12. Trump can appoint Putin the new Election Czar.

I am sure Putin has some good ideas about how to handle elections in the US.
Some of the same ones he uses in Russia.

[sheshe2]

15. I guess he doesn't want the military vote 🗳️

[underpants]

17. Well, the entire military can go home that day

All of them. At once. 🙄

[MineralMan]

16. No ID is required in Minnesota, either, for registered voters.

If you register at the polling place on Election day, you have to present some identification that shows where you live, so you vote in your precinct. Most people use their driver's licence, but other papers will work, as well.

All votes are made on paper ballots, which are tallied by optical readers.

[Dennis Donovan]

20. Same in NY state

If you're registered, all you have to do is sign a ledger that has a photocopy of your last signature next to where you sign.

Ballots are optically-read sheets of paper.

[JCMach1]

18. This is the reintroduction of Jim Crow era voter suppression

Tactics ... Along with a few new twists.

They are about to make voting as Byzantine as possible, especially while brown.

[Nictuku]

19. What about the constitution?

You know, the part that says each state manages their own elections?

[lees1975]

34. Exactly.

You'd think the news media reporter who posted this story would have caught that.

[Thrill]

22. Democrats had a chance to pass a Voters Rights Bill

And expand the courts. When Biden was first elected. But couldn’t get on the same page. Watch Republicans them how to be ruthless and do it. They never learn

[Basso8vb]

29. The blame is squarely on Manchin and Sinema in this case.

They were the reason we couldn't get shit done.

[Cartoonist]

24. Any talk about eliminating the Electoral college?

I didn't think so.

[viva la]

25. States determine how elections are conducted.

I don't know if Trump can get much changed.

[liberal N proud]

26. We will never have a fair election again in this country

They will set it up so republicans win

[Passages]

27. Carnival barker barks.

The states are giving up early voting/mail-in voting because he says so?


Keep barking.

[SRK65802]

28. National holiday

And no Donnie. Not a Saturday or Sunday.

Wish granted. Let your benefactors know to expect the bill.

[struggle4progress]

30. I Want Jesus to Walk With Me

[Hotler]

32. And he still walks free.

[lees1975]

33. Trump needs a lesson in constitutional law.

Elections are conducted by the states. He can say he's going to do this and that, but it is up to state legislatures how elections are run.

Funny, the news media source that published this story didn't check that out first. No surprise there, though.

[onethatcares]

35. as his buddy dumbya said

paraphrased, "the constitution is just a goddamn piece of paper".

For some reason that never got traction in the media..

[Celerity]

38. it's the RW shitrag Newsweek, which people now post here on DU more than ever, despite years of warnings

Newsweek Embraces the Anti-Democracy Hard Right

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100218334749







https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2022/11/04/newsweek-embraces-anti-democracy-hard-right



November 04, 2022

Although opinion pages in ostensibly nonpartisan, mainstream publications promote political opinions, sometimes controversial ones, Newsweek stands alone among such brands in its willingness to elevate such figures as Jack Posobiec, known for promoting the Pizzagate disinformation campaign, and Dinesh D’Souza, whose film 2000 Mules researchers roundly debunked for spreading conspiracies about the 2020 election. Under Hammer’s leadership, Newsweek has also aired bigoted views, like appearing to call for the state to deny adults access to trans-affirming medical care and supporting a ban on all legal immigration into the U.S. They have also spread baseless conspiracies about COVID-19, with one of Hammer’s collaborators describing vaccines designed to fight the virus as a “bioweapon.”

Newsweek has also failed to disclose potential conflicts of interest emerging in the content published through Hammer’s opinion section and his Newsweek-branded podcast, “The Josh Hammer Show.” Hammer donated to the campaign of Arizona U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters and at least four times published the work of a man who ran one of Masters’ fundraisers. On his podcast, Hammer told Newsweek’s audience to “go ahead and vote for Blake Masters.” Hammer also promoted hard-right Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán in a Newsweek dispatch authored from Hungary, without disclosing that he arrived there in collaboration with a group directly affiliated with the Hungarian government. Hammer also claims membership in a number of reactionary activist groups, and regularly publishes people who are also affiliated with them. He will appear on behalf of the New York Young Republican Club alongside Posobiec and QAnon influencer-turned-congressperson Marjorie Taylor Greene in December.

Hatewatch reached out to Newsweek for comment about the reporting published in this analysis. Newsweek first introduced Hatewatch to a representative of the journalism-focused non-profit Poynter, whom they contracted to advise them on ethics in 2019. Hatewatch had three different conversations with Poynter about Newsweek and their relationship, which are detailed later in this analysis. A representative from the public relations agency LBG PR replied asking for our questions. Hatewatch responded by emailing 19 different specific questions inspired by the reporting in this analysis, and LBG PR issued the following statement in reply:







Blake Masters, the Republican candidate for Arizona’s U.S. Senate seat, has emerged as a favored candidate of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and other admirers of fascism. (One of his major donors, tech billionaire Peter Thiel, has said he no longer believes freedom and democracy are “compatible.”) The notorious white supremacist website American Renaissance has republished versions of stories about Masters’ controversies from other outlets, drawing cheers from their notoriously racist comment section. White nationalist Nick Fuentes, who praises such fascist dictators as Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, also supports Masters. Neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin of the hate site The Daily Stormer wrote to his fans about Masters in June:



snip

present day:

https://www.newsweek.com/transgender-case-can-scotus-cut-moral-heart-issue-opinion-1996483

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[roamer65]

41. States run elections.

[0rganism]

45. Got that recurring feeling again: we're gonna miss the Old Republic

[0rganism]

44. Anyone thinking we can mitigate TSF 2.0 by electing a Democratic congress in 2026 just took a big L

Going forward, expect 60%+ margins for the Republicans. Everywhere.