“Voting by mail is already proving to be a catastrophic disaster,” Trump tweeted. “Democrats talk about foreign influence in voting, but they know that voting by mail is an easy way for foreign countries to get into the race.”
More and more states are considering mailing ballots, as the coronavirus pandemic shows little sign of slowing down in the United States ahead of the November presidential election. After drawing a false distinction between absentee voting and postal voting, the President suggested delaying the election rather than relying on postal voting.
He tweeted, “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. Delaying the election until the people can I properly vote safely and securely ??? “
No matter how many times the President says otherwise, voting by mail rarely results in fraud. And while Trump has tried to make the two fundamentally different before, absentee and mail voting is essentially the same, both subject to varying degrees of verification. As more Americans than ever before are expected to issue mail ballots this year due to the pandemic, experts acknowledge that there could be some logistical problems in terms of people who can receive and mail their ballots. But that is a far cry from the fraud claims and rigged elections that the President continues to defend.
Absent and vote by mail
Trump often advocates absentee voting, a practice with which he is more than familiar, while criticizing voting by mail. But the voting methods are very similar, and experts have told CNN that they are largely “the same.”
“Voting by mail without excuses or absentee voting, whatever it’s called, is essentially the same thing,” said David Becker, founder of CNN’s nonpartisan Center for Electoral Research and Innovation. “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.”
Rick Hasen, a professor at the University of California-Irvine and one of the nation’s leading electoral law experts, told CNN “The president seems to be trying to distinguish between mail in the vote where someone has to have an excuse and no excuse to vote by mail. “
While there may be some differences in the methods used to implement absentee and mail voting, experts say they are both safe ways to vote.
“The bottom line is that absentee and mail voting is safe in the United States,” Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center, told CNN. “Election officials, Republicans and Democrats alike, almost universally trust the system.”
You can read more here about how voting by mail works.
Mail Ballot Fraud
Trump’s insistence that an increase in the vote by mail in November will result in massive fraud is unfounded.
While rare cases of voter fraud do occur on mail ballots, it is not a widespread problem in the United States electoral system.
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.
You can read more about the history of mail ballot fraud and Trump’s false claims about it here.
Foreign interference
Contrary to the President’s insinuation, nonpartisan election experts say it would be very difficult for foreign countries to influence elections by voting by mail, which would require printing millions of fraudulent mail ballots.
The director of the National Center for Counterintelligence and Security, William Evanina, said in a statement on Friday that it is “extraordinarily difficult for foreign opponents to interrupt or change vote counts without being detected.”
Chris Krebs, the Trump administration official himself in charge of securing the elections also said that voting by mail is not an easy way for foreign countries to get involved in the American elections.
At a Brookings event in mid-July on “Electoral integrity and security in the COVID-19 era,” Krebs, who is director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, described the complexities involved in a foreign adversary trying to counterfeit a mail. on the ballot and the steps to verify the authenticity of each ballot.
During the same event, David Becker said the voting system is such that the situation Trump describes would be “virtually impossible.”
“There are so many checks and balances in the system that it is practically impossible, I would never say that it is impossible, it is practically impossible to change the outcome of an election in a way that would not be detected,” Becker said.
Changing election day
In his tweet, Trump suggested that the election be delayed “until people can vote properly and safely.”
Who has the authority to change the date of a United States presidential election? In a word, Congress.
The United States Constitution only allows Congress to change the date of a presidential election. For Trump to have that power, Congress would have to pass a new statute to give it to him.
In a March 20 Congressional Research Service report that examined legal considerations to potentially postpone this year’s federal election, he notes that “[o]Only Congress can change this date by enacting a new statute. ”
“The presidential election date has never changed in response to an emergency,” the report continues.
The CRS also explains that “[u]unlike the practice of some states that allow the Governor to postpone an election during emergencies, neither the Constitution nor Congress grant any similar power to the President. ”
So while Trump may advocate for a date change, he has no power to do so. And with the Democrats, who strongly support voting by mail during the pandemic, controlling the House and many Senate Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who already rejects the President’s suggestion, Trump is almost certain will not fulfill your wish.
CNN’s Marshall Cohen contributed to this report.
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