President Trump tweeted on Thursday morning that the fraud associated with mail-in voting could delay the election until people can safely and securely vote.
According to The Daily Wire:
President Donald Trump suggested delaying elections over the pandemic on Thursday.
Trump said that an election conducted by mail-in voting would lead to the “most INNACURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history.” The president has warned against Democratic calls for greatly expanding the absentee voting system for weeks, asserting that U.S. elections would be exponentially more vulnerable to fraud and abuse.
With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020
Trump’s Thursday morning tweet is the first time he has suggested delaying the election over the pandemic. The president has previously been a proponent for reopening after state’s issued strict lockdown orders following the outbreak of the coronavirus in the United States in March.
On Wednesday, Trump tweeted out a video of CBS News conducting an experiment in mail-in voting. “CBS News This Morning” co-host Tony Dokoupil sent out two batches of 100 mock ballots from different locations around Philadelphia and found that, even in his small experiment, some went missing.
Check out this Mail-In Voting experiment by a local news station! pic.twitter.com/23tOdt1hYc
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2020
The President of the United States does not have the authority to delay the election. The date the electoral college meets cannot be changed unless a law is passed by Congress. With Congress being controlled by both parties it is unlikely that this would happen.
A presidential election has never been delayed in the United States including during the Civil War and both World Wars.
