Government

VP Pence Votes Using Indiana Governor's Mansion Because FIRE THE WRITERS

This year, man, I don't know.

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With Donald Trump tapping out multiple deranged tweets daily warning that mail-in ballots will lead to “RIGGED 2020 ELECTION: MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES, AND OTHERS. IT WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES!,” his dutiful staff are working overtime to prove the big man right.

On the heels of news that White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany used her parents’ address to vote in the 2018 midterms and Donald Trump attempted to register to vote at his business address — both in Florida, obviously — Vice President Mike Pence, the former governor of Indiana, is showing some hinky voting love for the Midwest.

Business Insider’s Tom Lobianco reports that Mike and Karen Pence have once again used the Indiana governor’s mansion as their home address to vote absentee in their home state. Which is probably news to Eric Holcomb, the Hoosier State’s governor since January 9, 2017.

Does Governor Holcomb forward the Second Lady her Taste of Home and Good Housekeeping magazines? Will Vice President and Mother Pence be bedding down in the governor’s mansion if voters see fit to evict them from Number One Observatory Circle in November? Will the Pences ever again pay their own electric bill, as they dutifully strive to cut the safety net out from under poor Americans?

So many questions! But apparently using their old taxpayer-funded digs, to which the Pences have no intention of returning, as their Indiana residence is perfectly legal.

Pence’s spokesman Devin O’Malley told BI that “lawyers previously reviewed the issue for him and determined that, since the Pences did not own any homes in Indiana or Washington, the governor’s mansion was fine for complying with state law.”

Which is mighty convenient for the Veep! The GOP is suing to toss hundreds of thousands of voters off the rolls in Wisconsin and Georgia, and courts blocked Indiana’s Secretary of State Connie Lawson’s attempt to purge up to 481,235 “inactive voters” from the rolls. But for Mike and Karen Pence, who haven’t lived in Indiana for four years and have no fixed address in the state, Indiana will always home.

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Trump’s lies about voter fraud aside, most members of his retinue have used mail-in ballots in recent years. The Washington Post reports that, in addition to Trump, AG Bill Barr, HHS Secretary Alex Azar, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, RNC chair Ronna Romney McDaniel, and White House advisor Kellyanne Conway have all used absentee ballots in recent elections.

Maybe the reason Trump thinks absentee ballots are rife with errors is because he and his family are just really bad at it? The Post reports that in the 2017 New York mayoral election, Melania Trump forgot to sign the envelope, Ivanka sent her ballot in too late, Jared Kushner couldn’t even be bothered to return his at all, and Trump’s vote was rejected because he got his own birthday wrong. Or maybe Trump is kicking up such a fuss about mail in ballots because it leads to “levels of voting that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”

Which is exactly what he said in March, so, yeah, it’s probably that one.

Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, voted by mail in April from a mansion they haven’t lived in for 4 years [BI, paywall]
Trump calls it ‘rigged,’ but voting by mail is routine among his top administration and campaign officials [WaPo]

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Elizabeth Dye (@5DollarFeminist) lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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