Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) came under withering criticism on Monday afternoon after he attacked the use of absentee ballots in a tweet linking to a piece in the American Conservative.
The Kentucky Republican selected a quote from the piece that stated, "Seeding an area heavy with potential Democratic votes with as many absentee ballots as possible, targeting and convincing potential voters to complete them in a legally valid way, and then harvesting and counting the results,” and added, "How to steal an election."
That led to a barrage of commentary from critics, with one admonishing him: "You literally described the legal voting method. That's not stealing you idiot. It's called letting American's vote. It feels like stealing because your party is shrinking into nothing."
You can see his tweet and some responses below:
So campaigning and asking for votes is stealing? Have you considered if you weren\u2019t so racist and broken those votes might come back for you?— Baba NostraAdeptus (@Baba NostraAdeptus) 1640646013
The are far too many elected officials like @RandPaul who view the essential elements of democracy as a bug, not a feature, of the American political system.— Anthony Michael Kreis (@Anthony Michael Kreis) 1640645757
How to steal an election per Rand Paul:\nHave thousands of ballots available in an area heavy with Democratic (read nonwhite, young, urban-dwelling and unmarried) voters and allow them to fill them out legally without armed Proud Boyz looming over them, then actually count them.https://twitter.com/randpaul/status/1475542595673763848\u00a0\u2026— Joy-Ann (Pro-Democracy) Reid \ud83d\ude37 (@Joy-Ann (Pro-Democracy) Reid \ud83d\ude37) 1640669019
Thinking back to when Rand Paul came out against a ban on whites-only lunch counters.https://twitter.com/RandPaul/status/1475542595673763848\u00a0\u2026— Ian Millhiser (@Ian Millhiser) 1640648704
Rand Paul\u2019s definition of stealing is when voters elect somebody he doesn\u2019t like. A classic authoritarianhttps://twitter.com/helenkennedy/status/1475599865572999173\u00a0\u2026— Norman Ornstein (@Norman Ornstein) 1640645473
Rand Paul ridiculously claims that Dems are stealing elections by having voters vote legally\n\nSame guy whose wife bought Gilead stock based on pre-pandemic insider info he only got as a member of the Senate Health Committee\n\nYeah, we should really look to him as our moral compass— Lindy Li (@Lindy Li) 1640654663
You literally described the legal voting method. That's not stealing you idiot. It's called letting American's vote. It feels like stealing because your party is shrinking into nothing.— Fred Wellman (@Fred Wellman) 1640645798
Just to be clear: your (i.e., Republican senator) problem is that too many eligible US citizens are voting and having their vote counted?— David Rothschild (@David Rothschild) 1640647288
Reminder- Rand Paul did not support people in his own state getting child tax credits every month. When those checks don\u2019t come next month, Thank Rand and his Republican colleagues.— Patricia Arquette (@Patricia Arquette) 1640661522
Thank you sir for uncovering this disgusting plot to get people to vote, and your leadership in preventing it from happening again. What kind of democracy do we have when this is possible?— Don Moynihan (@Don Moynihan) 1640649640
