Rep. Tulsi Gabbard irks left after citing Project Veritas in call to ban ballot harvesting
by Jessica Chasmar, Washington Times, September 29, 2020
Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard irked progressives Monday night after she cited conservative watchdog group Project Veritas in a call to end ballot harvesting.
“Project Veritas offers further evidence of the need to ban ballot harvesting,” Mrs. Gabbard tweeted to her 890,000 followers. “It’s not a partisan issue. It’s been abused to help both R & D candidates, including in North Carolina & California.”
“Congress needs to pass our bipartisan bill to ban ballot harvesting so no one can exploit our sacred right to vote,” she wrote in another tweet.
The Hawaii Democrat and combat veteran, who unsuccessfully ran for president this year, has introduced a bill to ban ballot harvesting, in which third parties are authorized in some states to collect absentee and mail-in ballots from voters to submit in an election.
The practice has come under increased scrutiny ahead of the November election, in which many Americans are expected to mail in their ballots amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Project Veritas on Tuesday released a second bombshell video in its investigation into ballot harvesting on behalf of Rep. Ilhan Omar and other Democrats, sparking the Minneapolis Police Department to “evaluate” the voter-fraud allegations.
The video included a man speaking Somali allegedly telling another man how to fill out either a voter registration form or an absentee ballot application, then paying him $200 in “pocket money.” A video released Monday by the organization included one man identified as Liban Mohamed bragging on Snapchat that he had a car “full” of absentee ballots.
“ALLEGATIONS OF VOTER FRAUD BEING EVALUATED,” the police department tweeted on Monday. “The MPD is aware of the allegations of vote harvesting. We are in the process of looking into the validity of those statements. No further information is available at this time on this.”
Ballot harvesting is legal in Minnesota, but it’s limited to three ballots per person per election, and filling out ballots for others or paying for votes is illegal under federal law.
Mrs. Omar’s campaign on Monday denied any illegal activity.
Liberals on social media slammed Ms. Gabbard for lending credence to Project Veritas, sparking “Tulsi” to become a top trending U.S. topic on Twitter early Tuesday.
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