Burke: Why voting by mail is driving Trump crazy
Published 1:30 am Wednesday, August 27, 2025
By Tom Burke / Herald Columnist
So gentle reader, ask yourself: Is Donald Trump mad (as in angry) that he isn’t a dictator like Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong-un; or is he absolutely crazy (for power) and coming after American democracy and your voting rights to get as much of it as he can?
That’s right people, he’s coming after you; not just by putting masked, armed thugs on the streets; calling out the military to needlessly patrol L.A., D.C. (based on his lies about crime in the city), and perhaps Chicago; and firing the people who make government work for you (such as medical experts at the CDC, weather professionals in NOAA, lawyers at DOJ, and hundreds of critical staffers in the Defense Department, Social Security Administration, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Department of Education, FEMA, etc.).
Now he’s trying to rip your right to vote from you by illegally usurping the powers given to the states by the Constitution, so he can decide who votes and how your vote is counted, insuring he perpetuates his MAGA rule and completes his drive for total, authoritarian personal power.
Doubt me?
Keep reading; here’s what Trump posted on his “Truth Social”:
“I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we’re at it, Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES.”
He wants to do this here, in Washington state, where we’ve voted by mail in some form since 1983, and only once has the integrity of vote-by-mail been challenged; and that challenge was adjudicated this past March 6 when the state Supreme Court, in a unanimous ruling, upheld the constitutionality of the state’s ballot signature verification system and by extension mail-in ballot elections.
“Awww, that’s just Trump blowing smoke,” thinks you.
Yeah? How about these words right from Trump in the Oval Office, says me: “Mail-in ballots are corrupt. Mail-in ballots, you can never have a real democracy with mail-in ballots. We as a Republican Party are going to do everything possible that we get rid of mail-in ballots. We’re going to start with an executive order that’s being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail-in ballots because they’re corrupt.”
(Note: This would be a good time to remind everyone about all the B.S. conspiracy theories and false claims Trump’s spread that the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections were riddled by fraud, accusing Democrats of using mail-in ballots to cheat. Trump lost in 2020, and there was no evidence of widespread election fraud in that race.)
The Constitution does not allow the president to dictate to states about elections, as Trump is claiming when he posted “the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.”
Folks that’s yet another Trump lie.
He’s also lying when he claimed the U.S. is the only country that uses vote-by-mail. Thirty-four other countries use it including Canada, Japan, Australia, Germany, India, and the United Kingdom.
You know, I am so sick and tired of Trump’s lies.
He lies so much, about so many things, I don’t believe a word he says. About anything.
“’Come on,” says you. “It ain’t that bad.”
Wanna bet?
He lied about his loss in 2020.
He lied about grocery prices coming down. (The Consumer Price Index shows they are up.)
He lied about ending the Ukraine war in a day. (He utterly failed at his latest Putin summit.)
He lied about gas being $1.87 in some states. (Average national price was $3.17)
He lied that other countries pay his idiotic tariffs. (We, the American consumer, pay the tariffs.)
He lied he could end birthright citizenship. (Courts said it was “blatantly unconstitutional.”)
He lied about so, so many other things.
Which leads us to ask how people feel about him and his lying.
They hate it.
An Aug. 14 Pew Research Center poll of how Americans feel about his record shows it:
• A dismal 38 percent overall approval rating (essentially just MAGAs are OK with him);
• 61 percent disapprove of his tariffs;
• 53 percent say he’s making the federal workforce worse; and
• Only 46 percent approve of his big, beautiful bill’s tax and spending provisions.
And the same poll shows how they feel about him personally:
Just 36 perce of the population thinks he’s honest; and a pathetic 29 percent say he’s a good role model.
Imagine if 6 of 10 people you know said you weren’t honest (you’d be crushed) and 7 of 10 said you were a terrible role model for their (and your own) kids (a fatal blow to the old ego).
Donald Trump has been a moral and ethical failure his whole life.
He’s also been a business failure his whole career. (Except for a TV show that was total fiction.)
That a congenital liar, convicted felon, civilly guilty of sexual abuse, twice-impeached, proven know-nothing-about-anything business failure is president of the United States still astounds me.
But if we don’t scream and shout (legally, peacefully) and protest; and provide support (and yes, I do mean send money) to those opposing Trump, you, my good readers are going to really be astounded when vote by mail in Washington state is but a memory.
Vote. Vote by mail while you can and defend our democracy every way you can.
Because your liberty depends on it. And no one else can do as much as you.
Slava Ukraini.
Tom Burke’s email address is t.burke.column@gmail.com.
