March 26: On This Day In 2018
Years before he faced criminal indictments for his 2021 efforts to steal the 2020 election, Trump and his Commerce Secretary devised a scheme to unfairly rig not only the 2020 election but every federal election for the next ten years. It was clever! But, fortunately, the Supreme Court stepped in to disrupt their plans before they could be implemented.
So here’s their secret plot they lied about and tried to get away with.
Article 1 of the Constitution mandates the government, every 10 years, conduct a Census to count the number of people in the country. There’s nothing there in the law about asking people where they are from. Nevertheless, OTDI 2018, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced his intention to add a Citizenship question to the 2020 Census.
Why add a Q? In Ross’ telling, this addition would help enforce the Voting Rights Act. But that was a manufactured coverup for the real reason. As the AP revealed in 2022:
“Former President Donald Trump's administration spent years trying to add a census citizenship question as part of a secret strategy for altering the population numbers used to divide up seats in Congress and the Electoral College, internal documents released Wednesday by the House Oversight and Reform Committee confirm.”
Why did Donald and Wilbur conspire to do this? Trump guessed that after he had spent years insulting them, Latin-Americans and Asian-Americans might not like him so much. Trump hoped that adding a citizenship question could deter many of those anti-Trump voices from participating in the Census. If the Census shows there are fewer people in “blue” states than actually exist, that would tip the Electoral College towards “red” states--and thus make it easier for Republicans to win in future elections. At least until after the 2030 Census.
Gotta hand it to them: It’s a crafty plan, with an elegant coverup story. Of course it’s also a humongous lie and a devious scheme to steal 10 years worth of elections. It’s the kind of thing which would embarrass most people from appearing in public again once they were caught.
Fortunately, the Supreme Court ruled Trump’s scheme to be unconstitutional.
Sources/Links for further reading
The New York Times indicated the plan was to go forward
Until, as the Washington Post showed, SCOTUS stopped it
NPR revealed the secret strategy
Summary: Trump tries to steal ten years of elections via scheme to rig the Census.