President Trump has dug in on his opposition to mail-in voting, dismissing the concept as “corrupt” despite having voted by mail himself in last month’s Florida primary.
Trump suggested there was a difference between voting by mail while living out of state and voting by mail while living in the state where one is registered to vote.
“Well, there’s a big difference between somebody that’s out of state and does a ballot and everything’s sealed, certified and everything else. You see what you have to do with the certifications,” he said, claiming without evidence that there could otherwise be “thousands of people sitting in somebody’s living room signing ballots.”
“No, I think mail in voting is a terrible thing,” he added “I think if you vote, you should go.”
Trump voted by mail last month in Florida’s GOP primary, presumably for himself.
When asked why he voted by mail, Trump responded: “Because I’m allowed to. Well that’s called out of state — you know why I voted? Because I happened to be in the White House and I won’t be able to go to Florida and vote.”
Florida is a no-excuse absentee vote state — meaning that a voter can request an absentee ballot (aka one you fill out at home and mail back to the election authority) without offering any excuse for why they want to do so.
There are currently 27 no-excuse absentee states like Florida.
So, convenience is, under Florida law, a perfectly acceptable reason to vote absentee, which Trump did but not suggests leads to corruption.
Trump changed his address last year from New York to Florida.
Trump decried mail-in voting as scores of Wisconsin voters lined up at polling sites despite the coronavirus pandemic posing a public safety threat.
He blamed the chaos on the state’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers, who signed an executive order to postpone the election but had it overturned by the state Supreme Court.
Trump on Friday and again on Tuesday implied without evidence that the governor sought to postpone the election because of his endorsement for a Republican judicial candidate in the state.
Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Washington already conduct their elections by mail.
Democrats have pushed for expanded mail-in voting capabilities ahead of the November election, citing the potential for the coronavirus pandemic to upend typical in-person voting.
But Trump and other Republicans have bristled at the idea, citing the prospect of fraud.
Trump has repeatedly made unfounded allegations of voter fraud, even launching a since-disbanded commission to investigate his claim that it contributed to his popular vote loss in 2016.
Early in his presidency he formed (and then disbanded) a commission to examine voting irregularities, which produced no evidence of any widespread voter fraud in the country.