Trump Proposes 'Delay' in Presidential Elections Alleging Voter Fraud
"With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???" Donald Trump, July 30th, 2020
Federal elections are set by the Congress and the Constitution has no provisions for a delay to the January 20, 2021, presidential inauguration.
The Trump campaign released a statement regarding the president's tweet about delaying the election via CBS News.
Hogan Gidley, Trump 2020 National Press Secretary: "The President is just raising a question about the chaos Democrats have created with their insistence on all mail-in voting. They are using coronavirus as their means to try to institute universal mail-in voting, which means sending every registered voter a ballot whether they asked for one or not. Voter rolls are notoriously full of bad addresses for people who have moved, are non-citizens, or are even deceased. Universal mail-in voting invites chaos and severe delays in results, as proven by the New York Congressional primary where we still don't know who won after more than a month."
There is no evidence of voter fraud through mail-in voting, even in states with all-mail votes.
But several GOP state officials are forging ahead to do just that, undermining one of Trump’s arguments about how elections should be conducted amid the coronavirus outbreak.
While Trump has complained that voting by mail is “ripe for fraud," Republican state officials in Iowa, Ohio and West Virginia have all taken steps to ease access to mail-in ballots, following health officials’ warnings that voting in person can risk transmission of the deadly virus. The Nebraska's Republican governor urged voters to apply for absentee ballots. Florida's GOP chairman says the party will continue to run a robust vote-by-mail program.
Donald Trump has suggested November's presidential election be postponed, saying increased postal voting could lead to fraud and inaccurate results.
He floated a delay until people could "properly, securely and safely" vote.
There is little evidence to support Mr Trump's claims but he has long railed against mail-in voting which he has said would be susceptible to fraud.
US states want to make postal voting easier due to public health concerns over the coronavirus pandemic.
Under the US constitution, Mr Trump does not have the authority to postpone the election himself. Any delay would have to be approved by Congress. The president does not have direct power over the two houses of Congress.
What did Trump say?
In a series of tweets, Mr Trump said "universal mail-in voting" would make November's vote the "most inaccurate and fraudulent election in history" and a "great embarrassment to the USA".
With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020
He suggested - without providing evidence - that mail-in voting, as it is known in the US, would be susceptible to foreign interference.
"The [Democrats] talk of foreign influence in voting, but they know that Mail-In Voting is an easy way for foreign countries to enter the race," he said.
Mr Trump also said postal voting was "already proving to be a catastrophic disaster" in areas where it was being tried out.
Does US postal voting lead to ‘tremendous fraud’?
Could Donald Trump delay the presidential election?
In June, New York allowed voters to vote by post in the Democratic primary poll for the party's presidential candidate. But there have been long delays in counting the ballots and the results are still unknown.
The 2020 U.S. presidential election could be postponed if the coronavirus pandemic threatens to keep people from voting.
What's True
The date of a U.S. presidential election could theoretically be postponed with the approval of Congress and the president.
In 2020, the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic resulted in the curtailment of social gatherings; severely impacted businesses such as restaurants, entertainment venues, and airlines; and brought government-mandated curfews and national lockdowns throughout the U.S.
The pandemic also prompted the postponement of primary elections in some states, an event that brought a sober question to the mind of many Americans: Could the U.S. presidential election scheduled for Nov. 3 be delayed if necessary?
Although some alternative voting methods exist, most citizens still vote by reporting to polling places in person to cast their ballots, and if the congress approves this suggestion of Donald Trump, yes. It is possible that the elections will be
