As President Trump attacks voting system, Idaho’s congressmen offer weak response

Editor’s note: This editorial has been updated with a statement from U.S. Sen. Jim Risch.

At first blush, U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo’s tweeted statement Thursday night defending the American voting process might have seemed like a valiant repudiation of his party’s leader.

Hours earlier, President Donald Trump held a press conference to launch a tirade against counting votes and make unsubstantiated accusations of voter fraud.

“All votes should be counted in accordance with state laws and procedures,” Crapo wrote in a statement and tweeted Thursday night after Trump’s press conference. “Counting every legal vote is vital to our nation’s core principles. The integrity of our election process is equally imperative, and the courts should resolve any alleged improprieties. I have faith in the democratic process and my fellow Americans to accept the final certified results.”

It’s such a bland, general statement that it’s the equivalent of tweeting, “The sky is blue.”

It certainly isn’t a repudiation of the president’s incendiary, un-American comments.

“If you count the legal votes, I easily win,” Trump said at his press conference from the White House. “If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.

“I’ve been talking about mail-in voting for a long time. It’s really destroyed our system. It’s a corrupt system and it makes people corrupt, even if they aren’t by nature, but they become corrupt. It’s too easy.”

Trump went on and on with his lies, accusing people associated with our elections system of being corrupt, committing crimes and rigging the election.

Sowing the seeds of doubt about the legitimacy of one of the most vital tenets of our democracy deserves more than just a milquetoast response.

Idaho’s congressional delegation

Unfortunately, Idaho’s congressional delegation, at least so far, has been tepid, as they usually have been in challenging President Trump, as if the legislative branch were a subsidiary of the executive branch and subordinate to the president.

After watching Trump’s unhinged press conference, one might think that even Republicans would repudiate the president and at least acknowledge that what the president was saying was a step too far. And some GOP members nationwide have done that, just not Idaho’s.

We have received no response to our request for comment from U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, a Republican who was reelected this week in a state that saw record numbers of absentee ballots returned.

U.S. Rep. Russ Fulcher, R-Idaho, who was reelected in Idaho’s 1st Congressional District, was not only tepid in his response, he seemed to offer validity to Trump’s baseless accusations.

“Ensuring ballot integrity is paramount to preserving our republic,” Fulcher wrote in a statement that he tweeted from his campaign’s Twitter account Friday morning. “All legal ballots must be counted in a manner, transparent to everyone. As has long been noted — the process of mass ballot mailing utilized by some states (different than an absentee process) inserts more opportunity for inaccuracy and or fraud. Given this, the apparent ‘closeness’ of the presidential race, media reports of possible tabulation irregularities and ramifications of the outcome, it is wise to take time to validate the process and the count. Should evidence of error or wrongdoing, be discovered. It must be vigorously investigated and resolved.”

As has long been noted, Oregon has been voting by mail (different from an absentee process) for years without inaccuracy or significant voter fraud, according to the Oregon Legislative Fiscal Office.

U.S. Sen. Jim Risch, also reelected this week, likewise offered his own tepid response to the president’s allegations.

“Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy,” he wrote in an emailed statement. “Faith in our election system can only be gained with full transparency of the voting process. Every legal vote must be counted and every nonlegal vote eliminated. Claims of irregularities must be fully examined and then decided by the courts, based on the evidence presented. Loss of confidence in the electoral system would be catastrophic for our country.”

Our election system is working. It’s working right now. Unfortunately, it’s the president who is sowing those seeds of doubt that are causing Americans to lose confidence in the electoral system.

In June, the Heritage Foundation looked for voter fraud over a 36-year period, from 1986 to 2018, and found 1,285 cases out of nearly two billion votes cast, or a rate of 0.0000007%.

It’s worth noting that hundreds of thousands of Idahoans voted by mail this election, with nary a word of accusations of voter fraud.

Imagine if Fulcher’s Democratic challenger, Rudy Soto, made similar accusations against Idaho’s Republican Secretary of State Lawerence Denney or Ada County’s Republican County Clerk Phil McGrane, accusing them of stealing the election for Fulcher.

Some Republicans across the country apparently understood the gravity of what the president was doing.

“I saw the president’s speech last night and it was hard to watch,” U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pennsylvania, told the “Today” show. “The president’s charges of large-scale fraud, there’s no evidence here.”

U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, was a little more direct: “A sitting president undermining our political process & questioning the legality of the voices of countless Americans without evidence is not only dangerous & wrong, it undermines the very foundation this nation was built upon,” he tweeted. “Every American should have his or her vote counted.”

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Illinois, did not mention the president by name, but was forceful in his rebuke of what was going on.

“We want every vote counted, yes every legal vote (of course). But, if you have legit concerns about fraud present EVIDENCE and take it to court. STOP Spreading debunked misinformation. This is getting insane.”

Maryland’s Republican Gov. Larry Hogan piled on: “There is no defense for the President’s comments tonight undermining our Democratic process. America is counting the votes, and we must respect the results as we always have before. No election or person is more important than our Democracy.”

We just wish Idaho’s congressional delegation could stand up against baseless attacks on our democratic process, as well.

This story was originally published November 6, 2020 at 3:40 PM.