The “Access Hollywood” segment, filmed when Trump was trying to vote in the 2004 election, shows Trump alongside television presenter Billy Bush visiting multiple polling places in New York City. However, Trump cannot vote at every location because he is not on any of the voter lists at every stop.
Trump can be seen increasingly frustrated before declaring, “I am going to fill out the absentee ballot.”
The segment ends with Trump completing what Bush describes as a provisional ballot in his car.
“I just voted,” Trump promoted. “At least it can be said that the Trumpster is not giving up.”
The 16-year-old video has circulated on social media and has attracted new attention in the wake of the president’s continued attacks on the vote-by-mail.
Those attacks, which often take a partisan tint as the President has said he believes his party would be affected by the vote by mail, escalated on Thursday to the point that Trump floated delaying the election, something he cannot do. legally.
“With universal voting by mail (not absentee voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACTIVE and FRAUDULENT election in history. It will be a great shame for the United States,” Trump tweeted Thursday. “Delaying the election until people can vote properly and safely?”
During a press conference later in the day, Trump was asked to explain his motivations. At first, he suggested that he was trying to avoid a lengthy counting process that could take days or weeks if a large number of voters voted by mail. But he finally acknowledged that his accusations could cast doubt on any results that emerge in November.
“What people are looking at now is … all these stories are correct about the fact that these elections will be fraudulent, they will be arranged, manipulated,” he said.
“Everyone is looking at him,” Trump added. “A lot of people say it will probably happen.”
In reality, there is no evidence that voting by mail leads to fraud. While rare cases of voter fraud do occur on mail ballots, it is not a widespread problem in the United States electoral system. The most recent example of mail ballot fraud occurred in the 2018 midterm elections in a race in which a Republican activist in North Carolina was charged with multiple crimes related to questionable absentee voting activities in a Congressional race on behalf of the Republican candidate.
Fraud on the mail ballot is extremely rare in part because states have systems and processes in place to prevent counterfeiting, theft, and voter fraud. These systems would apply to both absentee ballots and mail ballots for voters within the state.
Furthermore, the president’s distinction between postal voting and absentee voting has baffled experts who say those voting systems are essentially the same.
“Unexcused mail voting or absentee voting, whatever you call it, is essentially the same thing,” David Becker, founder of the nonpartisan Center for Electoral Research and Innovation, previously told CNN. “You request a ballot, receive a ballot, vote, send it, and there are protections in place. It doesn’t matter if you call it a vote by mail or vote absentee. It’s the same.”
CNN’s Marshall Cohen, Tara Subramaniam, Holmes Lybrand, Kevin Liptak and Betsy Klein contributed to this report.
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