In late May, two Republican members of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission used a podcast produced by True the Vote, a right-wing voter suppression group, to cast doubt on the security of mail-in voting for the upcoming November 2020 elections.
The Election Assistance Commission (EAC) is an independent, bipartisan commission, established in 2002 by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) that serves as “a national clearinghouse” of election administration information.
True the Vote has close GOP ties and is known for its campaigns to purge voter rolls, push voter ID laws, and intimidate voters. The group is now recruiting ex-military and law enforcement officers to patrol the polls in November under the guise of guarding against alleged voter fraud.
Christy McCormick and Don Palmer, the two Republicans on the four-member EAC, spoke on the podcast with True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht about mail-in voting. Engelbrecht describes the process as “a disaster waiting to happen,” claiming that millions of registered voters who should be struck from the rolls will receive ballots.