Trump encourages voting by mail in Florida after criticizing it for months
Category: News & Politics
Via: tessylo • 4 years ago • 15 commentsBy: David Knowles, Editor, Yahoo News
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Politics
Trump encourages voting by mail in Florida after criticizing it for months
After months of insisting that voting by mail was an inherently flawed process that would lead to massive fraud in the 2020 election, President Trump on Tuesday encouraged residents of the state of Florida to cast their ballots that way.
It is unclear what Trump, who has voted by mail in past elections, meant when he claimed that “Florida’s Voting system has been cleaned up.”
At a press briefing Tuesday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump was referring to “a victory in the courts in Florida,” but gave no further details. In July the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a lower court’s order in a complex case involving the right of former prisoners to vote in Florida elections — a right that voters overwhelmingly approved in a referendum in 2018. The Republican-controlled state Legislature passed a bill requiring ex-felons to reimburse the state for unpaid fines and court fees before they could register to vote — effectively nullifying the provision, since even determining the amount they owe is virtually impossible in most counties. A lower court ruling backing the state’s position was allowed to stand by the Supreme Court.
President Trump speaks at the White House on Tuesday. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
So far Florida is the only state where the president is encouraging residents to vote by mail. On Monday, Trump threatened legal action against the state of Nevada after its Legislature approved a bill that guarantees mail-in ballots will be sent to all registered voters.
“We’ll be suing in Nevada,” Trump said during a White House press briefing, “and that’s already been taken care of.”
He also said Monday that he had the authority to issue an executive order limiting mail-in ballots in the 2020 election.
“I have the right to do it,” Trump said during a White House press briefing. “We haven’t gotten there yet. We’ll see what happens.”
The U.S. Constitution does not grant the president such powers. Instead, the power to tailor elections falls to Congress and the states.
Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, which as of Tuesday afternoon had infected at least 4.7 million Americans, killing more than 156,000, requests for mail-in ballots have far exceeded the number of requests in past presidential election years.
McEnany began her briefing by pointing out that it was “Day 42 of the botched New York City primary, where still there is no election results in one congressional race, which the New York Times notes is due to the deluge of 400,000 mail-in ballots.”
But there is little evidence to support Trump’s claim that the practice results in widespread fraud. A few states conduct elections almost entirely by mail, and Trump himself and other members of his administration have voted by mail in recent elections.
McEnany said that Trump, who is now a legal resident of Florida, requested an absentee ballot.
“Absentee voting is different than mass mail-out voting,” she explained.
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With the tRump turd, it's always 'do as I say, not as I do'
Considering the kaos he creates for the locals every time he goes to Mar A Largo, he better not count on many of them voting for him.
LOL, the Republican party in Florida is putting pressure on Trump on mail voting since as the article stated the dem are requesting mail-in ballots in larger amounts than republicans.
I have no idea what he is talking about that Florida has cleaned up the mail-in voting procedure.
In fact, I mailed my primary ballot for local elections today.
I trust tRump NEVER HAS ANY IDEA WHAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT.
I'm not sure if it's dementia or tertiary syphilis.
He is pushing for FL because it is a swing state. He thinks all of FL loves him. They don't.
Was your primary today like it was here in Michigan, if so then your ballot will arrive too late. A ballot arriving too late here in Michigan will not be counted.
I believe Kavika lives in Florida, so you are incorrect.
Of course Kavika is in Florida, was their primary today? The rule in Michigan is the ballot must arrive no later than the day of the primary to be counted.
What do you care? I'm sure Kavika is fine and understands perfectly what he needs/needed to do.
It's due here by 7 pm, August 18th, 2020.
Good, wasn't sure what all states had their primaries today.
The context of that is that they won a lawsuit there first to clean up the voter roles and other precautions and made it safe to do so first before he endorsed theirs.