International- Many Republicans who complained about early and absentee voting in 2020 did so themselves.
- The New York Times published a report on how the House GOP supported Trump's unfounded claims.
Many House Republicans who complained about early and absentee voting in the 2020 election voted that same way themselves, according to a New York Times analysis.
At least half of the 139 House lawmakers who objected to certifying at least one of the states Joe Biden won voted either early or absentee, the Times found. Another 18% voted on election day and the Times was unable to find data for another 32% of lawmakers. The Times based its data on publicly available information about voting.
Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas is among the Republicans who belong to this group. He told the paper that increasing the amount of mail-in voting left "ripe" opportunities for fraud.
"Any time you increase and you use the mail system, in this country, for voting, it's going to be rife with fraud," he told the paper. Nehls himself voted either early or absentee in 2020. His office did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
The Times, in a lengthy investigation published Monday morning, traced the impetus and the aftermath of the GOP push to defend President Donald Trump's election lies on January 6. Part of the report is based on how Republicans tried to find other avenues to question the presidential election's outcome without necessarily repeating verbatim Trump's claims about it.
According to the Times, Republicans rallied around a push to raise constitutional questions about whether court actions could change aspects of voting amid the COVID-19 pandemic without state legislative approval. Others also echoed Trump's concern that mail-in voting was more susceptible to fraud.
Absentee and mail-in voting saw gigantic increases amid the pandemic as voters looked for safer opportunities to cast their ballots without the throngs of people that often vote in person on Election Day. Many states also proactively changed their procedures or made explicit pushes for Americans to not wait to vote until Election Day.
Trump also engaged in this apparent hypocrisy, voting by mail in at least two primaries in 2020. Trump later voted early in person in the 2020 general election. Trump has aggressively pushed to severely curtail early and absentee voting with the ultimate goal of requiring Americans to vote solely on election day.
Republicans have pushed arguments about widespread election fraud, despite few cases being brought by prosecutors who focus on the issue. Instead, efforts to curtail early voting and other methods can often disproportionately target Americans of color. Texas Republicans were forced to walk back proposed changes to their election laws after an outcry about how they would have affected "Souls to the Polls," the tradition in some Black communities to vote after church.