WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday suggested that perhaps the United States would need to “delay the election” on November 3, claiming that mail-in voting would make this fall’s election “the most inaccurate and fraudulent in history.”
Trump has no power to unilaterally delay elections, which were set for the day after the first Monday in November through a mid-19th century law passed by Congress. Since then, it has never changed, said presidential historian Michael Beschloss.
But Trump is trailing in the polls by double digits to Democrat Joe Biden, and election experts have long worried that the president would actively try to interfere with the election in order to prevent a potential loss.
As states grapple with how to help citizens vote safely during the coronavirus pandemic, many have turned to mail-in voting as a potential solution that allows people to cast their ballots without waiting in long lines at potentially crowded polling places.
But Republicans, led by Trump, have strongly objected to expanding access to mail-in ballots, claiming without evidence that voting by mail invites voter fraud. Trump’s presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee are spending tens of millions of dollars this year on lawsuits to challenge state efforts to expand access to mail-in ballots.
Trump and several of his top aides all vote by mail, so the president has recently claimed that absentee mail-in ballots are totally different from other types of mail-in ballots, such as the ones that states could let voters apply for if they feared contracting coronavirus at a polling place. But experts say there is no functional difference between the two.
Thursday is believed to be the first time Trump has publicly suggested delaying the November election, raising questions about the timing of his incendiary tweet. Moments before Trump tweeted, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that during the second quarter of this year, U.S. Gross Domestic Product had fallen by a record level of 32.9% annualized.
The stunning figure, which is exponentially larger than any previous quarterly economic loss, was made worse by the news that weekly unemployment claims also rose last week, indicating that the recovery Trump has long promised is not happening.
Instead, a new wave of coronavirus outbreaks has exploded in states that reopened early this spring. In the wake of these surges, commerce in parts of these states has ground to a halt, driven as much by individual fear of infection as by statewide closure mandates.
A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to questions about the tweet, and whether it was meant merely as a distraction from the bad economic numbers.
Shortly after his bombshell tweet about delayed elections, Trump was back once again to tweeting about the protests in Portland and drug prices.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.