Ron DeSantis to Iowa Voter: ‘We’re Gonna Do Ballot Harvesting’
“I’m not gonna play with one hand tied behind my back,” he said.
Scott Morgan/Reuters
At a campaign stop in Iowa, Ron DeSantis said he planned on using ballot harvesting—the tactic at the center of a debunked 2020 election conspiracy theory—in his own campaign. “We’re gonna do ballot harvesting,” DeSantis told a voter in Iowa, in a video posted by Washington Post reporter Dylan Well. “I’m doing it, yes.” Ballot harvesting—a term that refers to delivering a completed absentee ballot on behalf of someone else—is legal in some states but banned or restricted in others. The practice was the subject of debunked right-wing conspiracy theories in 2020, with election deniers alleging that Democrats illegally paid “mules” to collect ballots in swing states. DeSantis, who has long dodged taking a stance on 2020 election conspiracy theories, framed embracing the practice as a way to get even. “I’m not gonna play with one hand tied behind my back,” he said.
DeSantis tells an Iowa voter: “We’re going to do ballot harvesting. I’m doing it, yes.”
— Dylan Wells (@dylanewells) June 1, 2023
He says he won’t “fight with one hand tied behind my back.” pic.twitter.com/tKkr7YFDjX
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