Newt Gingrich on mail-in voting debate, impact of progressives on Democrat Party, heated Antifa hearing
Former House speaker and Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich joins 'Fox & Friends.'
Democrats can’t win an “honest election” so they are trying “to set up an ability to steal it,” Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday.
Gingrich made the statement the morning after the Trump campaign and the Republican National state and national committees filed a lawsuit against Nevada over expanded mail-in voting for the November election.
The lawsuit claims Assembly Bill 4, which would allow ballots to be mailed to all registered voters in the state, will undermine the election’s “integrity,” FOX 5 in Las Vegas reported.
Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, signed the bill on Monday after it passed the state legislature along party lines, the Nevada Independent reported.
Sisolak tweeted the bill “ensures protections for Nevadans to vote safely at the November election during the pandemic.”
Gingrich also reacted on Wednesday to a tweet from former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who wrote, “I fear Republican sabotage of the USPS, including slowing mail delivery, is a Trump strategy to make voting by mail more difficult this fall. Request your ballots and return them as early as you can.”
“I think Hillary misses the entire point,” Gingrich said.
He went on to bring up Nevada as an example, citing an expert on the topic.
“They’re going to mail ballots to 200,000 people, who according to the post office don't exist. They’re either dead, they’ve moved, the address doesn't work, 200,000 extra ballots floating around out there,” Gingrich said.
He then brought up the fact that in New York, it recently took weeks after the polls closed to get the results of some congressional primary races as absentee and mail-in ballots were counted.
“You have two congressional districts that six weeks after the primary they haven't been able to announce a winner,” Gingrich said.
“Now, you get into that in terms of a presidential campaign, nationwide, and I think this is going to be the most disastrous election in American history at the rate at which the Democrats are trying, frankly, to set up an ability to steal it because I don't think they think they can win an honest election.”
Trump has railed against mail-in voting over fraud concerns as more states seek to increase it during the pandemic.
On Tuesday, however, Trump encouraged voters in Florida to request mail-in ballots, where he said the system was “Safe and Secure, Tried and True.” Trump has voted absentee in Florida.
Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Washington already mail voters ballots and California and Vermont plan to do so in response to the virus, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Gingrich said on Wednesday that he is “very concerned.”
He then pointed to the fact that Hans von Spakovsky, an attorney and former member of the Federal Election Commission, who is now with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C., “has 1,100 cases of vote theft.”
“So I think this is a real thing,” Gingrich said. “I think people need to be worried about it and it tells you how polarized we are.”
Late last month Trump suggested delaying the 2020 election over security concerns about mail-in ballots, which sparked quick, widespread backlash.
Experts say moving Election Day cannot be done under presidential authority and requires an act of Congress.
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The White House in a statement said that the president was not fully demanding that the day of the election be changed and criticized Democrats for promoting a massive expansion of mail-in voting that Republicans say can be exploited and can lead to delays between the actual election and when the results are available.
Fox News’ Brie Stimson and Michael Ruiz contributed to this report.
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