Commentary: Trump's voter fraud speech was bait. Stop biting

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Set us as preferred It pains me to say that most of us are missing the point when it comes to President Trump’s rambling election fraud speech.Which is exactly what he wants.

Within minutes of its airing Thursday night, the internet and pundits were abuzz debating whether voting machines were secure and whether the federal government has a right, or even a duty, to oversee voter rolls (it has neither).Long posts were written condemning voter identification efforts, and more posts written attacking those condemnations.

This, friends, is exactly what the speech was meant to accomplish — myopic bickering.To be specific, myopic bickering about the past, as a dark future creeps ever closer — like, say, Nov.

3.The question we should be asking now isn’t whether there is massive fraud in U.S.

elections — even the conservative Heritage Foundation has documented only 71 cases of such fraud in California in more than 25 years.The question is will we allow Trump to sow just enough doubt in the minds of average Americans that what comes next seems inevitable and even necessary?Trump falsely claimed that he was revealing “an election system so broken and so vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it.” “This cannot be allowed to continue,” he said.

Those are ominous words, ones we should take seriously.“This is a very sad thing to be able to say about the president of the United States, but I think it’s quite clear,” said Mindy Romero, director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy, a nonpartisan research facility.

“This is about a certain set of political goals, and using this misinformation to achieve those political goals.”At the heart of MAGA conspiracies is misinformation about voter rolls and voter ID, relentlessly boring topics that may determine the fate of democracy.Trump knows that the midterms p...