Trump suggests Election Day delay, which he legally can’t do, to avoid mail-in voting
President Donald Trump on Thursday suggested postponing Election Day to avoid widespread voting by mail.
“With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history,” he wrote on Twitter. “It will be a great embarrassment to the USA.”
In his tweet, he didn’t offer evidence to support the claim that the type of voting would lead to an “inaccurate and fraudulent” outcome, or why absentee voting is “good” while mail-in voting is not. The president also doesn’t have the authority to change when people vote, according to experts.
“The President is just raising a question about the chaos Democrats have created with their insistence on all mail-in voting,” Hogan Gidley, press secretary for Trump’s 2020 campaign, said Thursday in an email. “They are using coronavirus as their means to try to institute universal mail-in voting, which means sending every registered voter a ballot whether they asked for one or not.”
When asked about a possible election delay, Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told WNKY the country has gone through war and economic hardships without changing the voting day.
“We’ll cope with whatever the situation is and have the election on November 3rd as already scheduled,” the Republican from Kentucky said in video posted to anchor Max Winitz’s Twitter feed.
In a recent analysis of roughly 14.6 million votes from the 2016 and 2018 elections, cases of possible “double voting or voting on behalf of deceased people” were found 0.0025 percent of the time in states that allow universal mail-in voting, according to the Electronic Registration Information Center and The Washington Post.
Also, a Stanford University study found results of mail-in voting don’t tend to favor either political party, McClatchy News previously reported.
Traditionally, mail-in absentee ballots have been used when people physically can’t get to the polls. Some have considered more widespread vote-by-mail options during the coronavirus pandemic.
Could the November election be delayed?
States could postpone the dates their residents hit the polls, but they must send in their electoral votes by December 23, according to the U.S. Constitution Center. Congress also could have the power to change deadlines, but the president doesn’t hold that power, officials say.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
This story was originally published July 30, 2020 at 8:25 AM with the headline "Trump suggests Election Day delay, which he legally can’t do, to avoid mail-in voting."
