Donald Trump came out for vote-by-mail efforts in his home state of Florida today – after spending months calling mail voting nationwide as rife with fraud.
Trump, who himself casts an absentee ballot by mail in Florida, made the surprising turnaround on Twitter, after a series of polls showed him trailing Democrat Joe Biden in the state.
Most experts agree there is no chance he can be reelected without winning Florida’s 29 electoral votes in November.
‘Whether you call it Vote by Mail or Absentee Voting, in Florida the election system is Safe and Secure, Tried and True,’ Trump said.
‘Florida’s Voting system has been cleaned up (we defeated Democrats attempts at change), so in Florida I encourage all to request a Ballot & Vote by Mail!’ Trump added. He concluded his missive by writing ‘#MAGA’ – his ‘Make America Great Again’ slogan.
Trump’s flip comes one day after he threatened to go to court to prevent Nevada from mailing ballots to voters.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio told reporters he was ‘not concerned at all’ about mail-in voting in his stage, which hosts a large number of elderly residents as well as a COVID-19 spike.
Some Trump allies have raised concerns that his harsh rhetoric about mail-in voting could ultimately suppress his own vote in some areas.
Over the weekend, Trump again warned of the danger of election fraud by mail-in ballots in a new interview and claimed the election could be delayed by its unprecedented scale.
‘You know, you could have a case where this election won’t be decided on the evening of November 3. This election could be decided two months later.’ Trump told Axios.
Trump added: ‘We have a new phenomenon it’s called mail-in voting. It’s new in terms of the kind of millions and millions of ballots. So they’re going to send tens of millions of ballots to California, all over the place.
Mail-in voting has been available in most states for decades, including U.S. service members.
Trump has increasingly sought to cast doubt on the election and the expected pandemic-induced surge in mail-in and absentee voting – particularly as he has found himself trailing in public and private polling.
Trump has called remote voting options the ‘biggest risk’ to his reelection.
His campaign and the Republican Party have sued to combat the practice, which was once a significant advantage for the GOP.
On Monday, Trump told a White House press conference that he had the authority to issue an executive order on mail-in ballots.
‘I have the right to do it,’ Trump told reporters at a White House press conference. ‘We haven’t gotten there yet, we’ll see what happens.’
Trump added that Republicans are planning to file suit as soon as today to try to block Nevada’s expansion of mail-in voting.
But now he is promoting it, at least in Florida.
Nearly all election procedures are governed on a state-by-state basis, with the remainder set by Congress or enshrined in the Constitution.
There is no precedent or apparent authority for Trump to try to curtail the use of mail-in ballots by executive order, though he could use a document to formalize his opposition to the practice.
Trump’s claimed authority comes days after he publicly floated a delay to the November 3 presidential election, a notion that was met with swift bipartisan blowback.
There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud through mail-in voting and the states that use it say they have necessary safeguards in place to ensure that a hostile foreign actor doesn’t disrupt the vote.