Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Claim: Nevada​ illegally mailed absentee ballots to registered voters. Fact check: False

Claim: Nevada​ illegally mailed absentee ballots to registered voters. Fact check: False
A message from Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske




Nevada allows any voter to vote absentee by mail. Like in many other states adapting to carrying out elections amidst a global pandemic, Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske declared the upcoming primary would be carried out by mail due to the coronavirus. A federal judge recently ruled that conducting the primary election by mail ballot was lawful in rejecting an injunction to block Nevada's primary.

President Trump's tweet suggests voting-by-mail is fraudulent, despite a lack of evidence to support the claim. In a press release responding to Trump, Cegavske, a Republican, said Nevadans "have been voting by mail with no evidence of election fraud" for over a century, including members of the military, citizens residing outside the state, voters in designated mailing precincts, and voters requesting absentee ballots. Cegavske said all 17 counties have established processes and procedures in place for safe and secure mail-in voting. Research shows voter fraud with mail-in ballots is rare and even with the increase in mail voting over time, fraud rates remain "infinitesimally small," according to the Brennan Center.

The tweet also seems to suggest that Trump has the legal authority to "hold up funds" to the state of Nevada for carrying out its upcoming primary by allowing all voters to vote by mail. No such legal authority exists.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

The statements made here are alike to those in another tweet Trump wrote, which levied substantially similar claims about the state of Michigan. Trump falsely accused Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson of illegally mailing out absentee ballots to 7.7 million Michiganders for the state's primary and general elections.

Read More

New York Post front page reads "Injustice." Daily News front page reads "Guilty."

New York's daily newspapers had very different headlines the morning after Donald Trump was convicted in s hush money trial.

Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images

Why the American media and their critics won’t stop telling the same lie

The American media has a bootleggers-and-Baptists problem.

Bootleggers and Baptists” is one of the most useful concepts in understanding how economic regulation works in the real world. Coined by economist Bruce Yandle, the term describes how groups that are ostensibly opposed to each other have a shared interest in maintaining the status quo. Baptists favored prohibition, and so did bootleggers who profited by selling illegal alcohol. And politicians benefited by playing both sides.

There’s an analogous dynamic with the press today.

Keep ReadingShow less
city skyline

Reading, Pennsylvania, can be a model for a path forward.

arlutz73/Getty Images

The election couldn’t solve our crisis of belief. Here’s what can.

The stark divisions surrounding the recent presidential election are still with us, and will be for some time. The reason is clear: We have a crisis of belief in this country that goes much deeper than any single election.

So many people, especially young people, have lost faith in America. We have lost belief in our leaders, institutions and systems. Even in one another. Recent years have seen us roiled by debates over racial injustice, fatigued by wars, troubled by growing inequities and disparities, and worried about the very health of our democracy. We are awash in manufactured polarization, hatred and bigotry, mistrust, and a lack of hope.

Keep ReadingShow less