Despite Trump’s rhetoric about postal voting, the president recently argued that Florida’s voting system is safe, tweeting earlier this month: “Whether you call it postal voting or absentee voting, in Florida the electoral system is safe and secure, tried and true. Florida’s voting system has been cleaned up (we defeated Democrats’ efforts to change it), so in Florida I encourage everyone to request a Ballot & Vote by mail! ”
White House Deputy Secretary of State Judd Deere told CNN that “the president supports absent votes, not universal post-vote, which include various safeguards that prevent fraud and abuse.”
Election experts have told CNN that there is no real difference between voting in absentia and voting without an apology for mail and the two are “essentially the same thing.”
USA Today was the first to report the vote.
Voting for email in recent weeks has been front-and-center, as fears of the coronavirus have caused states to make the process easier, allowing residents to avoid going to polling stations where infection could potentially spread . Trump and other Republicans have rallied against the option, arguing unequivocally that it will lead to voter fraud, with the president saying Thursday that he opposes the need for funding for the U.S. Postal Service, t he does not want to use it for post-in voting this November.
There is widespread voter fraud in U.S. elections, and non-partisan experts say no party will automatically benefit if states extend access to mail-in-vote.
But even if Trump publicly opposes voting via mail, his support for it in Florida and his own decision to use it for the 2020 election could provide Democrats and some Republicans who support the option with yet another argument as to why his opposition to it is purely political.
When the president was asked earlier this month about his support for Florida mail-in voting, he seemed to imply that Republican-run states were on par with existing mail-in voting programs, but Democratic states set up as expanding mail-in mood during the pandemic were not.
“That Florida has a great Republican governor and it had a great Republican governor (before that) … and over a long period of time, they’ve got the absentee ballots extremely professional. Florida is different from other states,” Trump said, before saying criticism of voice-over-post efforts in Nevada and New York, states led by Democratic administrators.
This story has been updated with a statement from the White House.
CNN’s Ellie Kaufman, Marshall Cohen, Jason Hoffman, Nicky Robertson and Betsy Klein contributed to this report.
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