https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2020/09/30/maura-healey-christiane-amanpour-voter-suppression
Dialynn Dwyer, Boston.com Staff
September 30, 2020
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said Tuesday that President Donald Trump is engaged in efforts to undermine free, safe, and secure elections in the United States, breaking down her concerns during an interview with reporter Christiane Amanpour.
“We are in unprecedented times,” Healey said during her interview on CNN. “Let’s just review what the president has recently done to undermine free and safe and secure elections in this country. I can’t believe I’m even saying that, but let’s just review the last few weeks. He sabotaged the U.S. Postal Service to slow down mail in ballots. He sent robocalls that threatened Black voters with turning personal information over to debt collectors and the like. He’s threatened to send law enforcement and the military to the polls. And the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign have been filing dozens of lawsuits all over the country to try to stop early voting, to try to stop mail-in voting, and do all sorts of things that are about keeping people from voting.”
During the interview, the state attorney general spoke about her lawsuit to stop the president’s changes at the United States Postal Service and efforts by attorneys general around the country to protect voting rights and ensure every vote is counted in the November election.
The focus should be on making sure everyone is able to get out and vote, she said, calling the efforts to scare people away from the polls “outrageous.”
“Voter intimidation is real,” Healey said. “If you thought you could win an election outright, fairly, you wouldn’t have to play games and you wouldn’t have to try to steal it. Which is what Donald Trump is doing with these repeated efforts to try to scare voters from the polls, intimidate them by saying that he’s going to allow private parties to work with law enforcement at the polls.”
.@MassAGO Maura Healey says President Trump is threatening democracy: “He sabotaged the US postal service… He sent robocalls that threatened Black voters w/ turning personal information over to debt collectors He’s threatened to send law enforcement & the military to the polls.” pic.twitter.com/pM2dxIkXKl
— Christiane Amanpour (@camanpour) September 29, 2020
.@MassAGO Maura Healey: “Voter intimidation is real. If you thought you could win an election outright, fairly, you wouldn’t have to play games and you wouldn’t have to try to steal it, which is what Donald Trump is doing.” pic.twitter.com/VqpCfHMR4k
— Christiane Amanpour (@camanpour) September 29, 2020
In recent weeks, Trump has repeatedly refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power, a stance he reiterated Tuesday night during the first presidential debate while he continued to attack the integrity of the election and make false and misleading statements about the security of voting and mail-in ballots.
During her interview with Amanpour, Healey accused the president of attempting for weeks to “sow confusion and undermine people’s belief in mail-in voting” in the process. The attorney general expressed concern that Trump will call the election in his favor before all mail-in votes are counted, since they can only be opened on Election Day and it may take time, perhaps even a few days for them all to be processed.
“This shouldn’t be about partisanship, if there’s something fundamental, bedrock, to this country and the way it’s operated through times of great strife and division and world wars and the like, it’s that we’re able to hold free and secure elections,” she said. “Unfortunately, Donald Trump has done a lot to undermine that. And the RNC has enabled and worked right alongside him.”
.@MassAGO Maura Healey: “We may know a winner that night [Nov 3], or it may take several days before all votes are in. During that time, the concern is that Trump will call the election in his favor, even though votes haven’t been counted.” pic.twitter.com/xmJsP8PsrG
— Christiane Amanpour (@camanpour) September 29, 2020
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
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