The president is lying again. No shock there. But to what effect?

President Trump on Wednesday escalated his assault against mail voting, falsely claiming that Michigan and Nevada were engaged in voter fraud and had acted illegally, and threatening to withhold federal funds to those states if they proceed in expanding vote-by-mail efforts.

The president inaccurately accused the two states of sending mail ballots to its residents. In fact, the secretaries of state in Michigan and Nevada sent applications for mail ballots, as election officials have done in other states, including those led by Republicans.

This is part of a more general effort to resist an increase of vote-by-mail in the 2020 elections. Ground zero has been Texas where attorney general Ken Paxton has threatened to prosecute anyone who facilitates the practice. Yet, on Tuesday, a federal district judge put an injunction on any effort to restrict vote-by-mail.

Days after a two-hour preliminary injunction hearing in San Antonio, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery agreed with individual Texas voters and the Texas Democratic Party that voters would face irreparable harm if existing age eligibility rules for voting by mail remain in place for elections held while the coronavirus remains in wide circulation. Under his order, which the Texas attorney general said he would immediately appeal, voters under the age of 65 who would ordinarily not qualify for mail-in ballots would now be eligible.

Biery’s ruling covers Texas voters “who seek to vote by mail to avoid transmission of the virus.”

Without getting into the complexities of Texas’s law, there’s a bit more logic to the effort there than any nationwide approach. Trump will presumably win with voters over 65, although that’s no longer a safe bet. Any system that is more permissive of vote-by-mail for seniors than everyone else makes some sense for the president, but as a more general matter it’s seniors who are most vulnerable to Covid-19 and the most apprehensive about voting in person. Trump could easily lose in November if turnout among older voters is depressed for this reason. Vote-by-mail is the most logical way to reduce that risk.

Trump doesn’t seem to grasp this. Both he and Paxton argue that vote-by-mail will increase the risk of voter fraud, but you can safely ignore that as a genuine reason for their concern. They know voter fraud is not going to decide the election. What they want to avoid is high turnout, which they believe will help Democrats up and down the ballot.

Before the Covid-19 outbreak, this was a cynical and undemocratic ploy based on dishonest rhetoric and contemptible legal arguments, but at least the theory that low turnout helps the GOP had some statistical support. In the midst of this pandemic, however, there are good reasons to doubt that past patterns will hold.

Democrats do very well with young voters, but young people are notoriously disengaged from politics and lack strong roots. Few of them own homes, and many move around between apartments or for work or college. They’re the least likely to be registered to vote at a current address. They, along with recently married women, are the least likely to have a picture ID that matches up with their voter registration information. Urban Democrats who don’t drive or own a car are the least likely to have any kind of photo identification. This is why the Republicans work so hard to make having a photo ID a prerequisite for voting, but that restriction cannot work if people aren’t required to show up to vote in person.

The idea is to selectively drive down turnout so that it has more impact on the Democrats than the Republicans. It can be very effective, but it only works if older voters skew heavily Republican and show up at a higher rate than younger voters. Because older voters are generally well-rooted in their communities and have all their paperwork up-to-date, they historically have had the highest turnout of any age group. When you further suppress the Democratic base vote, this gives the Republicans a healthy advantage.

This advantage is muted in presidential years because young voters are far more likely to take an interest in the leader of the country than in who represents them in Congress or at the local level. But it’s still an advantage. But young people are far less to fear voting in person because of the coronavirus than their parents and grandparents. That’s why opposing vote-by-mail this year may not be a solid electoral strategy for Trump and the Republicans.

Now, if you’re a long-term GOP strategist, you might worry that widespread acceptance of vote-by-mail in 2020 might not hurt this year but will be impossible to put back in the box. After the pandemic subsides, the previous turnout differential will probably resume, and the GOP will have lost the Voter ID suppression tactic.

Yet, remember, Trump is neither a long-term thinker or someone who gives a rat’s ass about the future health of his party. He is running his last election, and if he were to understand what’s good for him, he wouldn’t be opposed to vote-by-mail. He wants every senior who wants to vote for him to have their ballot cast and counted. As things stand, many will stay away from voting places on Election Day, and this will cost Trump dearly.

There is some limited value in arguing that the Democrats are cheating, as it riles up the base. But efforts to suppress the black vote usually backfire as it just ramps up interest in the right to vote so that people show up even if they’re not there out of any particular enthusiasm for the candidates. Likewise, efforts to force people to vote in person will make them more determined to punish their people responsible.

On the whole, I think this is a foolhardy approach by Trump, and I’d cheer him on except that I don’t want people disenfranchised and I don’t want to see them have to choose between voting and dying.