By
Ed Kilgore,
political columnist for Intelligencer since 2015
California mail ballots.
As we are learning each day, there is nothing nearer and dearer to our president’s heart than election conspiracy theories. It’s bad enough that his personal litmus test for loyalty is whether someone subscribes to his totally debunked claim that he won the 2020 presidential election (just as he claims his narrow wins in 2016 and 2024 were, in fact, vast historic landslides). But his election denialism is prospective as well as retrospective. As we speak, he is all but refusing to do his job until Congress passes his “final version” of the SAVE America Act, which is based on the totally unsubstantiated belief that millions of noncitizens are voting in U.S. elections. He is demanding that the bill’s complex new ID requirements for registering to vote and its sharp new restrictions on voting by mail be implemented right away, blowing up preparations for the 2026 general election and possibly keeping millions of actual citizens from participating.
