RNC video takes Biden, Obama, Wasserman Schultz out of context on mail-in voting

A new video launched by the Republican National Committee suggests Democrats are pushing a "radical plan to change our elections" through widespread mail-in voting.

"This is a radical change from their past," the video says. As evidence, it flashes to clips of comments by President Barack Obama, U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., and former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder that are divorced from any context.

The one-minute video plays snippets of journalists bashing Iowa Democrats over their bungled caucus in February before ending with a warning: "Democrats couldn’t run the Iowa Caucus. Don’t let them redesign our entire election."

The RNC launched its Protect the Vote website May 8, vowing to fight the "Democrats’ assault on the integrity of our elections."

But the clips of Democratic leaders are removed from the context of what they were talking about and ignore Obama’s support for voting by mail in general at the time. 

The video also wrongly portrays the push for more mail-in voting as solely a Democratic effort. While Democratic leaders have pushed for more mail-in voting, they aren’t alone. Republican officeholders in at least 16 states that do not have all-mail elections were encouraging voters to cast ballots via mail. The RNC’s former chairman in March called for conservatives to embrace broader use of voting by mail.

RELATED: Donald Trump’s dubious claim that 'thousands' are conspiring on mail-ballot fraud

The ad starts with a clip of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden stating, "We have an incredible opportunity to not just dig out of this crisis but to fundamentally change this country." The text on the screen says, "Democrats have a radical plan to change our elections."

But Biden’s statement was about protecting essential workers, not voting by mail or in person. He used a May 4 campaign event to talk about providing a livable wage and paid sick leave to workers including meat packers and grocery store clerks.

Biden’s campaign has said he wants safer options for voting, including voting by mail and in-person voting.

At a virtual fundraiser in April, Biden told donors that we have to make it easier for everyone to vote if we are still in lockdown, including providing mail-in ballots.

At a virtual fundraiser May 8, Biden praised a move by California Gov. Gavin Newsom to send a mail-in ballot to every voter.

The video shows MSNBC’s Chris Matthews asking Obama a question related to mail-in voting. 

"They are talking about people mailing in their ballots. Do you trust the security, the honesty of such an election process?" Matthews asked.

Obama responded: "Well, I’d think we would have to figure out whether this was fraud-proof."

The video doesn’t clearly show the context of the interview; faint text on the screen says "Decision 08." 

It would be possible for viewers to assume Obama was criticizing voting by mail in general, but Obama was commenting about a specific set of circumstances related to the presidential primary in Florida.

Featured Fact-check

Derrick Van Orden

stated on April 1, 2024 in X, formerly Twitter

You can vote in-person absentee at your clerk’s office on Monday before Election Day.

In 2007, the Florida Legislature moved up the date of the presidential primary to Jan. 29, earlier than either national party permitted. Hillary Clinton beat Obama, but the Democratic National Committee determined that the election violated party rules and stripped the state of its delegates. In March 2008, some Florida Democrats proposed a do-over election including a scenario of entirely voting by mail. 

Here was Matthews’ full question on March 11, 2008, to then-Sen. Obama:

"There’s word from Florida that they intend to put out a mailing sort of a campaign — I mean, an election process, whereby they make up for the primary they had before, which was ruled out of order by the Democratic National Committee and you did not campaign in. They’re talking about mailing it — people mailing in their ballots. Do you trust the security, the honesty of such an election process?

The RNC video only included the first sentence of Obama’s cautious response. But Obama then made some positive statements about voting by mail:

"I mean, Oregon, for example, has a terrific mail-in system, but they’ve already scanned everybody’s signatures who’s registered to vote so that they can check to make sure that in fact the right people are voting. And that’s something that I think you’d have to figure out."

During the 2020 pandemic, Obama has not expressly called for only voting by mail. He called for safe voting options while tweeting a New York Times story that debunked the claim that absentee voting favors Democrats and an NPR story about proposals to expand voting by mail and early voting.

The clip in the video of Wasserman Schultz does not clearly show the context. The text on the screen reads "postal primary do-over" — but it’s difficult to decipher.

"Debbie Wasserman Schultz argues a mail-in ballot has ‘wrong’ written all over it," a journalist says.

The video then shows a clip of Wasserman Schultz, a Broward Democrat, stating: "It would be a risky experiment for us with an election that has stakes as high as a presidential election does." 

The RNC video omits her next sentence: "We've never done a mail-in ballot statewide." She also said that "there's a way to solve this without totally redoing this and causing more chaos."

Those clips are from a CNN report on March 10, 2008, about the idea for a mail-in primary do-over.

Wasserman Schultz was talking about voting by mail in the narrow context of the proposed re-do election that spring. After months of wrangling that spring, the DNC agreed that Florida could send a full delegation to the convention, but each delegate would only get half a vote.

Amid the pandemic, Wasserman Schultz said she supports expanding early voting and vote by mail options.

The video also includes a quote by Eric Holder, a former Attorney General under Obama. 

"No form of electoral fraud ever has been or will ever be tolerated by this administration," Holder said. That stems from a speech he gave about voting rights in 2012; he wasn’t specifically talking about absentee ballot fraud. 

An RNC video says Joe Biden said voting by mail is a way to "fundamentally change this country," contradicting past statements by Barack Obama and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

The RNC video only includes snippets of statements by Obama and Wasserman Schultz to leave viewers with a misleading impression that they were bashing voting by mail in general, and that wasn’t the case. Obama and Wasserman Schultz were talking about voting by mail in a narrow set of circumstances: a controversial proposal to redo the presidential preference primary in Florida in 2008. There is no evidence that overall either Democrat was broadly critical of voting by mail as an option in elections.

The portion of the video about Biden also omits context. The video quotes him stating "we have an incredible opportunity to not just dig out of this crisis but to fundamentally change this country," before launching into the video’s theme that Democrats want to use mail-in balloting to "radically change" American elections. But Biden wasn’t talking about elections, he was talking about protecting workers amid the pandemic.

This video includes actual quotes by these three Democrats, but lacks context to explain their remarks. This video rates Mostly False.

UPDATE, May 15, 2020: We received a statement from the RNC after publication. It does not affect the rating of the fact-check.