(Headline USA) President Donald Trump on Thursday trolled the Left and the legacy media, by suggesting a delay of the Nov. 3 presidential election because increased mail-in voting — blamed on the coronavirus pandemic — will result in fraud.
The date of the presidential election — the Tuesday after the first Monday in November in every fourth year — is enshrined in federal law and would require an act of Congress to change, including agreement from the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives. Regardless, the Constitution makes no provisions for a delay in the end of Trump’s term — noon on Jan. 20, 2021.
“With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history,” Trump tweeted Thursday. “It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???”
Trump has called remote voting options the “biggest risk” to his reelection, as evidence has mounted in states like California and New Jersey that the widespread mail-in balloting is rife with fraud. His campaign and the Republican Party have sued to combat the practice.
Hogan Gidley, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, pointed to the delays in counting votes in New York’s primary: “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. ”
Trump refused in an interview just weeks ago with Fox News to commit to accept the results of the upcoming White House election, recalling a similar threat he made weeks before the 2016 vote.
“I have to see. Look … I have to see,” Trump told moderator Chris Wallace during a wide-ranging interview on “Fox News Sunday.” “No, I’m not going to just say ‘yes.’ I’m not going to say ‘no,’ and I didn’t last time, either.”
Media outlets have not asked Democrat nominee Joe Biden the same question, despite the fact that 2016 loser Hillary Clinton — nor the schemers involved in the Obamagate-driven Russia investigation hoax — have not “accepted the results” of Trump’s victory four years ago.
Trump and many members of his administration have previously availed themselves of absentee voting, but Trump differentiates that from a growing push by states to mail all registered voters either ballots or absentee request forms.
Most states are still finalizing their plans for November, although California has announced plans to send ballots to all registered voters for the fall election along with having in-person voting options available. A small number of states also sent ballots to voters during the primaries, but most states are not expected to do so in November. Instead, voters will have to request an absentee ballot if they want to vote at home.
Last month, Trump told supporters in Arizona that “This will be, in my opinion, the most corrupt election in the history of our country.”
Attorney General William Barr, speaking to a House committee earlier this week, claimed there was “a high risk” that mail-in voting would lead to “massive” fraud. He said he had no “reason to think” the upcoming election would be rigged. But he said he believed “if you have wholesale mail-in voting, it substantially increases the risk of fraud.”
Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.
