- President Donald Trump said Friday that he plans to vote absentee in the 2020 election.
- Trump has drawn a false distinction between absentee voting and voting by mail, which are practically the same thing.
- The President has repeatedly made unfounded claims that voting by mail will lead to widespread electoral fraud in November.
- Election fraud is extremely rare in the United States.
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After months of unfounded attacks on the mail vote, President Donald Trump said Friday that he plans to vote via absentee ballot in the 2020 election.
“Absentee ballots are great … I’m going to vote absentee,” Trump told reporters as he once again condemned voting by mail, which is virtually identical to voting absentee in terms of process and security measures.
Trump has repeatedly drawn a false distinction between absentee and mail voting, according to voting experts.
“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, said in mid-July.
“You request a ballot, receive a ballot, vote, send it, and there are protections in place,” added Becker. “It doesn’t matter if they call it a vote by mail or a vote by absentee vote. It’s the same.”
Although he continues to make misleading comments about voting by mail, Trump will vote by mail in November. The president also voted by mail in the Florida Republican primaries in March.
—Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 31, 2020
Due to concerns about the coronavirus pandemic, Democrats have advocated for increased access to voting by mail to reduce the chances of the virus spreading in crowded polling places.
Trump, who is following former Vice President Joe Biden in the polls, has responded with repetitive and unfounded claims that voting by mail will lead to widespread fraud.
“Because of MAIL VOTES, 2020 will be the MOST DIFFERENTIAL election in our nation’s history, unless this stupidity ends,” Trump tweeted on June 22.
On Thursday, the president went so far as to suggest that elections should be delayed (which he has no legal authority to do), again citing unsubstantiated concerns about voting by mail and reflecting the tactics of authoritarian undemocratic regimes in the process. .
The reality is that electoral fraud is extremely rare in the US, and there is no substantial evidence to support the idea that increased access to voting by mail will jeopardize the integrity of elections.
In 2016 and 2018, there were only 372 potential fraud cases out of approximately 14.6 million mail-in ballots (just 0.0025%), according to a recent analysis by The Washington Post. Several states already carry out
Despite these facts, Trump continues to maintain that voting by mail will lead to “disaster” in November.
In short, the president is actively trying to undermine the legitimacy of the 2020 elections over a secure form of voting that he plans to use himself.
