Trump’s Absentee vs. Mail-In Ballot Spin
President Donald Trump continues to draw false distinctions between mail-in and absentee ballots, claiming the former are rife with voter fraud while the latter — which he has used as president — require a voter to go through “a very strict process. The equivalent of going to a voting machine, or maybe even sometimes better.”
Voting experts told us the verification process is the same for absentee and mail-in ballots, and many states consider them to be the same thing.
As many states attempt to ramp up mail-in ballot options in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Trump has positioned himself as a staunch opponent, claiming that if states expand mail-in voting it will result in a “rigged election.”
In a radio interview with Michael Savage on June 15, Trump warned that an expansion of mail-in ballots would increase “the chance of theft, where they steal them, they hold up mailmen, they take them out of mailboxes, they print them fraudulently.” Trump said a friend whose son died seven years ago told him that he recently received a ballot in his son’s name. “These mistakes are made by the millions,” Trump said.
Some in the media have of Trump’s position on mail-in voting, given that he voted by mail in the Florida primary this year.
