Sen. Lisa Murkowski said President Trump is undermining faith in the legitimacy of American democracy by suggesting the 2020 election will be fraudulent.
“We want to work to build the faith and in our electoral process, not to undercut it by suggestions that this is a corrupt process,” she said. “This is not leadership from the White House on this issue.”
The president on Thursday wrote a statement on twitter denouncing expanded use of vote by mail.
Even the president’s allies in Congress rejected the president’s suggestions that the election might be fraudulent and should be delayed. Murkowski did too.
“It’s incredible to me to think that the president would propose that as a response to his view that this is going to be a corrupt election,” she said. “If he’s worried about a corrupt election, then he should be working aggressively with the Congress to make sure that we do not have a corrupt election, that we have a fair election, that we have an election that we as Americans are proud of.”
Alaska has allowed voting by mail for years, Murkowski said, without compromising the integrity of the election. She said Congress has been working to provide more election security. She identified foreign interference as a threat.
“We know full well that there are those outside this country that would love nothing more than to erode the credibility of the election process,” she said. “Here in the United States, particularly with our presidential election, we’ve seen it.”
She also noted the president has no authority to delay the election.
A spokesman for Sen. Dan Sullivan said Sullivan does not support delaying the election. He did not respond to a question asking if it’s appropriate for the president to allege the election would be fraudulent.
President Trump’s approval rating has dropped in recent weeks. Numerous polls show him trailing presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
Liz Ruskin is the Washington, D.C., correspondent at Alaska Public Media. Reach her at lruskin@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Liz here.
