Trump calls for postal vote ahead of Florida local elections, despite unfounded fraud allegations

Trump calls for postal vote ahead of Florida local elections, despite unfounded fraud allegations

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Photos available through Getty Images show that Trump was in New York City on Tuesday.

CNN contacted Trump representatives for comment.

The request marks only the last instance of Trump’s vote through the same process that has repeatedly sought to discredit throughout the 2020 election without evidence. Trump and then-First Lady Melania Trump also requested ballots in the mail for Florida’s primary elections in August.

In the final months of his failed re-election attempt, Trump said the postal vote was fraught with fraud and an easy target for interference in foreign elections. These attacks generally took on a partisan tone, as Trump said he believed his party would be hampered by voting by mail.

“With universal postal voting (not absentee voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most IMPRECISE and FRAUDULENT election in history. It will be a major embarrassment to the United States,” Trump tweeted in July. “Delay the election until people can vote properly, safely and securely?”

In reality, there is no evidence that voting by post leads to fraud. Although there are rare cases of electoral fraud on ballot papers, this is far from being a widespread problem in the United States’ electoral system. Postal vote fraud is extremely rare, in part because states have systems and processes in place to prevent counterfeiting, theft and electoral fraud.

Despite his public rhetoric, Trump maintained that Florida’s voting system is safe, tweeting last year: “Whether you call it postal voting or absentee voting, in Florida the electoral system is safe and secure, judged and true. Florida’s voting system has been clean (we defeated Democrats’ attempts to change), so in Florida, I encourage everyone to request a vote by mail and vote! “

Asked about the apparent contradiction at the time, Trump seemed to suggest that Republican-governed states with existing postal voting programs were safe, but that Democratic-led states establishing or expanding postal voting during the pandemic were not.

“So Florida has a great republican governor and it had a great republican governor (before that) … and for a long time they managed to make the absentee ballots extremely professional. Florida is different from the others. states, “Trump then said, before criticizing postal voting efforts in Nevada and New York, which were led by Democratic governors.

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