President Donald Trump has spoken out against the use of widespread mail-in voting as a way to keep voters safe when they go to the polls after November, amid what is likely to be another pandemic.
While post-in-votes have been touted as an ideal alternative to personal voting during the outbreak of coronavirus, Trump has continued to raise unfounded concerns about the possibility of voter fraud.
A new Morning Consult poll suggests that voters do not buy the president’s argument, however, with the lion’s share of voters saying they believe Trump opposes post-voting because “he believes it will make it harder for him to win re-elections. “
Published on Thursday, the new Morning Consult poll, which saw 1,994 registered voters surveyed between August 14 and 16, found that 51 percent of voters think Trump is afraid of losing the election, would be widely circulated post-in -voices must advance.
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Meanwhile, 37 percent said they think Trump really believes voting for mail-in “will increase voter fraud.” Another 12 percent said they did not know or had no opinion on the matter.
Meanwhile, a majority of voters believe that recent operational changes implemented to the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy are “politically motivated” and “designed to make it harder for Americans to vote by mail.” “
DeJoy, a donor of the Trump campaign that took the helm of the USPS in June, recently made a number of changes to the agency, including reducing authorizations for services and overtime.
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He also oversees the removal of mailboxes and sorting machines across the country.
The changes led to delays in deliveries, with some concerns about important medications being delayed.
Following the changes, the USPS warned that it could not guarantee that all postal messages delayed would arrive on time, leading to widespread declines.
DeJoy has since announced that the changes will be held until after the November election, however.
In the Morning Consult poll, 42 percent of voters surveyed said they believe the initial operational changes were politically motivated.
Meanwhile, 33 percent said they believed they were actually made to “cut costs, seeing the USPS in financial trouble.” Twenty-six percent said they did not know it or had no opinion.
Not surprisingly, the belief that Trump is afraid of losing the election with vote after mailing and worried that DeJoy’s actions were politically motivated was both higher among Democrats, with 82 percent believing the former and 63 percent suspecting the latter.
Among Republicans, just 17 percent said they believed Trump would vote against mail-in because he thinks it would make it harder for him to win re-elections, while just 16 percent said they felt DeJoy’s change policy were driven.
Newsweek has contacted the Trump campaign team and USPS for comment.
Michael A. McCoy / Getty
