On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Laura Coates Live,” Michigan Secretary of State and gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson (D) argued that President Donald Trump is trying to change election rules “in the middle of his presidency” “to essentially rig the election and scare people into — about voting this far in advance” with his position on congressional maps in Texas and mail-in voting.
Benson began by saying that Michigan wouldn’t be joining in with the back and forth over district lines because “In Michigan, we have very clear rules around who draws our districts, and it’s citizens. Citizens draw our district lines, because citizens actually amended our state constitution to put that into the law.”
She continued, “But what this debate over redistricting and this back and forth in Texas and California is really [underlining], and, again, this was started by Texas, who tried to egregiously redraw maps in the middle of a decade to further the President’s will, is that, you see, both in that example, as well as in the attacks on voting by mail, you see a President who’s eager to attack the laws of democracy in his own country. And the question has to be, why? Why is he so desperate to change the rules of the game in the middle of — of the democracy in the middle of his presidency? And in my view, it’s because he’s scared. He’s scared of the power of the voters in the midterm elections, voters who have seen grocery bills skyrocket, who can’t afford to buy homes, who are facing huge tax increases and cuts to health care. He doesn’t want to have to face the voters in fair districts with fair and accessible voting laws across this country. And so, you’re seeing these attempts to essentially rig the election and scare people into — about voting this far in advance, but we won’t stand for it, in Michigan or anywhere else. We’re going to protect democracy, protect the voting rights of every citizen in our state and in our country. That’s what democracy requires.”
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