WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has shifted his focus from the U.S. Postal Service in his concerns about possible mail-in-vote fraud, claiming that problems with sent ballots lie with local election officials who will count them incorrectly . ‘
In an interview with The Washington Examiner at the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump was asked to confirm that he has no concerns about the USPS’s ability to deliver ballot papers.
“No,” Trump said. “It’s not the post office … it has nothing to do with the post office.”
Even if mail delivery occurred “a day too late,” Trump said, “that’s not the problem.”
“The problem is if they dump all this [ballots] for a few people who count them, and they will count them wrong, “the president said in the interview, without offering evidence.” The post office is not to blame. “
The president reiterated that the “only thing” he cares about are “unsolicited ballots, where they will send 80 million unsolicited ballots to people they do not even know if they live or if they live there. I think that it is a catastrophic disaster for this country. “
There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the United States, according to numerous investigations and studies, and the President’s Commission of Inquiry into the voter fraud has unraveled without evidence of systemic problems. Election officials in polls say they have no problem with fraud.
Trump suggested in the interview, published late Wednesday, that it will be election workers who will remove the counter in November, saying the USPS has been working the same way for a long time.
“It’s not the post office,” Trump said. “No, it’s the polling station. The post office – look, this is a con job. It’s like the Russian hoax. The post office has run like it’s run forever.” He added that new postmaster general Louis DeJoy will do a good job. “But the post office is the post office.”
Trump has regularly voted against the vote as Democrats try to expand access to issue absentee ballots because of the coronavirus pandemic. The president has meanwhile requested an absent vote for himself allowing him to vote in Florida, but remotely.
Earlier this month, Trump voiced opposition to any funding increase for the USPS passed by Congress, although he later said that if it were to be wrapped up in a larger coronavirus relief package, he would not veto it.
More recently, the president began to suggest that ballot boxes would become a problem if people provided their absentee ballots, arguing that it would lead to widespread fraud.
