The DoJ’s New Voter Suppression Tactic: Building a Vote Fraud Narrative Without Evidence

Attorney General William Barr -- Building a 

narrative of massive vote fraud without any evidence 

In a new twist on voter suppression, the Department of Justice (DoJ) has reversed a decades-long policy of not opening aggressive voter fraud investigations in the months before an election. The idea was to avoid  “chilling legitimate voting and campaign activities” or “interjecting the investigation itself as an issue.” 

The New York Times writes on this politically fraudulent new form of voter suppression:

“For decades, federal prosecutors have been told not to mount election fraud investigations in the final months before an election for fear they could depress voter turnout or erode confidence in the results. Now, the Justice Department has lifted that prohibition weeks before the presidential election.

The move comes as President Trump and Attorney General William P. Barr have promoted a false narrative that voter fraud is rampant, potentially undermining Americans’ faith in the election.

A Justice Department lawyer in Washington said in a memo to prosecutors on Friday that they could investigate suspicions of election fraud before votes are tabulated. That reversed a decades-long policy that largely forbade aggressively conducting such inquiries during campaigns to keep their existence from becoming public and possibly “chilling legitimate voting and campaign activities” or “interjecting the investigation itself as an issue” for voters.

The memo creates “an exception to the general non-interference with elections policy” for suspicions of election fraud, particularly misconduct by federal government workers, including postal workers or military employees; both groups transport mail-in ballots. The exception allows investigators to take overt investigative steps, like questioning witnesses, that were previously off limits in such inquiries until after election results were certified.

The Justice Department could ‘build a narrative, despite the absence of any evidence, of fraud in mail-in voting so Trump can challenge the election results if he loses,’ said Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney in Alabama under the Obama administration.

‘They’ve told us this is their strategy, and we’re watching them implement it,’ Ms. Vance said.  

The policy shift, Mr. Hasen said, ‘encourages more of these announcements that could, these small-bore things, be treated as evidence of rigging and then promoted at a higher level.’”

Vance is right. The president has openly said that if he loses the election, it will be due to voter fraud. Clearly, any DoJ investigation itself is going to become a campaign issue. The president will use it as cover and claim that the investigation itself is evidence of massive vote fraud, despite there being no such evidence. This president will not accept defeat at the polls. He will lie, cheat, irrationally emotionally manipulate and even fabricate fake evidence to stay in power.  

This is the kind of lies, deceit and political fraud a corrupt tyrant wannabe engages in when making his best, last run at authoritarian power and corrupt wealth. This is also a part of what the end of a meaningful representative democracy can look like.