Trump, While Attacking Mail Voting, Casts Mail Ballot Again

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President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Yuma International Airport in Arizona on Tuesday.





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Some administrators argue that if an elections office offers things that make returning a ballot easier like prepaid ballot postage, and ballot drop-boxes, then third-party ballot collection needn’t be banned. Others argue that it’s fair and reasonable to limit the number of ballots one person can turn in, as many states do.

The largest case of election fraud in recent U.S. history took place during the 2018 midterm elections and involved third-party ballot collection. A GOP operative illegally collected and potentially tampered with ballots in a U.S. House race in North Carolina, eventually leading to the election results being overturned by state authorities.

Amid fears of slowed-down mail service, Trump’s own use of a third party to turn in his ballot will surely be used by Democrats, who point out that the practice allows voters to avoid using the mail for ballot return but can still be convenient and secure in some cases.

«Donald Trump votes by mail but doesn’t want you to. If it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for us, tweeted Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ vice-presidential nominee last week.

More broadly, it’s another example of Trump or someone in his orbit using a ballot they received in the mail; The Washington Post counted 16 such instances in an article this summer. The American Civil Liberties Union launched an ad campaign Wednesday highlighting how Trump and members of administration have voted by mail while fighting efforts to expand the practice for others.

Changing tactics

In the earlier days of the pandemic, the Trump administration sought to push back against all expansions of voting by mail, arguing that people should have to have an excuse to vote using a mail or absentee ballot.

«I think there’s a range of concerns about mail-in ballots, said Attorney General William Barr, in an interview with NPR in June. «I’m not talking about a mail-in ballot for a limited number of cases where somebody, you know, is going to be traveling around the world, and the way that the state has provided for that is, you mail in your ballot .

But Florida, where Trump cast a ballot this week, describes its system as a «vote-by-mail system, and it has not required an excuse for anyone to vote that way for nearly 20 years. Republicans there have long depended on mail votes from the older, whiter parts of the electorate, and whose mail ballots have traditionally been accepted at at higher rates than non-white voters.

However, this year is different, perhaps due to Trump’s rhetoric around voting, says University of Florida political science professor Michael McDonald.

«The numbers in Florida really are eye popping, said McDonald. «We have at this point in time, registered Democrats outpacing the registered Republicans in mail ballot requests by over 660,000 ballot requests.

North Carolina, another battleground state, shows a similar story, with registered Democrats requesting triple the number of mail ballots that Republicans have.

Trump has tried to reverse course over the past month, saying that voters should feel confidence voting using the mail in both states. White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said this week that Trump only has an issue with the handful of states that are proactively sending ballots to all registered voters, without first making them request them.

New Jersey became the latest state to announce that it would mail ballots to all registered voters, quickly drawing a lawsuit from the Trump campaign Tuesday night.

«The distinction Trump is drawing between absentee balloting and «universal mail-ins in terms of the potential for fraud is nonsensical, tweeted UC-Irvine political science professor Rick Hasan.

And it’s also unclear if the message is getting through to Republican voters. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll out this week found that just 11% of Trump’s supporters plan to vote by mail this fall.

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