President Trump tweeted Tuesday afternoon that Florida voters should vote by mail this November, claiming that there is nothing to worry about in terms of security.
The president has generally railed against mail-in voting, claiming that Democrats are going to take advantage of the system to commit fraud and rig the election against him. At this point, however, he appears confident that this will not be the case in the Sunshine State.
“Whether you call it Vote by Mail or Absentee Voting, in Florida the election system is Safe and Secure, Tried and True,” Trump said. “Florida’s Voting system has been cleaned up (we defeated Democrats attempts at change), so in Florida I encourage all to request a Ballot & Vote by Mail!”
The president has voted via absentee ballot from Florida in the past and could do so this year as well.
MAIL-IN VOTING FACES SLEW OF ISSUES NATIONWIDE, AS EMERGENCY USPS MEMO SOUNDS ALARM
Some states, like Maryland, are mailing absentee ballot applications to voters rather than the ballots themselves. A common practice, this process requires voters to provide personal information in order to get a ballot. What is new is states mailing ballots to voters unprompted, which has caused concerns over how states decide who to send them to. Trump on Monday threatened legal action against a universal mail-in voting plan in Nevada.
Trump and other Republicans have warned that mail-in voting could lead to ballot harvesting, ballots for dead people or ballots for people who no longer live at the residence where they are sent being fraudulently filled out. Additional concerns include ballots being lost in the mail and disenfranchising voters.
Democrats claim that instances of voter fraud are rare, and that this is not a valid concern.
In an 360aproko interview that aired Monday on HBO, Trump claimed that another issue with mailed ballots is the time it would take to count them means the “election could be decided two months later.”
