Facts First: Trump is inventing a distinction where none exists, and also peddling baseless claims of rigged elections and fraudulent ballots. Different states use different terms, but “absentee ballots” are “mail-in ballots,” and vice versa. Regardless, there are strict measures in place across the country to verify the authenticity of all ballots cast in the mail. These measures are very successful — more than 99.9% of votes in US elections are legitimate.
“No-excuse mail voting or absentee voting — whatever you call it — is essentially the same thing,” said David Becker, founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research. “You request a ballot, you get a ballot, you vote, you send it in, and there are protections in place. It doesn’t matter whether you call it mail voting or absentee voting. It’s the same thing.”
CNN and other outlets have previously reported that Trump and many administration officials have utilized vote-by-mail options in the past. This includes Vice President Mike Pence, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, as well as members of Trump’s family who tried to vote absentee but sent the ballots in too late.In addition to conflating absentee voting and mail-in voting, Trump raised the possibility that the election would be “rigged” and that 20% of the votes would be “fraudulent ballots.”
Based on turnout in past presidential elections, 20% of the vote would amount to at least 20 million votes. Fraud of that scale would be near-impossible to pull off and is not a serious threat, experts say.
When Trump touts the “precise process to get your (absentee) voting privilege,” he’s likely talking about things like voter registration, providing proof of identity, and signature-matching. These safeguards are in place for all postal voting, regardless of whether someone has voted absentee for many election cycles or is requesting an absentee ballot for the first time this year.
In the 2016 election, about 24% of all ballots were cast in the mail, according to federal data. Experts expect that will significantly increase this November, as states expand postal voting to keep people away from polling places during the Covid-19 pandemic. Officials from both parties implemented these sweeping changes — despite Trump’s public pleas to restrict postal voting.
In some states, an excuse is required to vote absentee. But to make it easier this year, states have loosened the rules on what counts as a valid excuse, like fear of getting the coronavirus at the polls. Some states have taken the step of pro-actively sending absentee ballot requests to all registered voters. Other states are going farther and will send a ballot to all registered voters.
Several reporters debunked Trump’s claims within minutes of his Twitter post Friday morning. CNN has repeatedly fact-checked Trump’s wildly untrue claims about voting-by-mail, allegations of fraudulent elections, and his far-fetched theories about foreign countries printing ballots.
The irony is that Republicans have spent decades trying to get more vote by mail because it helps their own turnout. Now a lot of his voters are rejecting it because he’s against it. Oops.
But hey, this is a guy who is actively promoting the killing of older people who form the largest part of his base so I don’t think he’s thought any of this through.
*I should say that if I thought there was a strategy in all this, which I don’t, I would think they are hoping their voters would all vote in person on election day and everyone else would vote by mail — which might mean that he looks like a winner on election night but loses after all the votes are counted. I think you can imagine what they’d do with that. It’s something to think about.