Since the pandemic began, Democrats have feared that President Trump would seek to cancel or postpone November's general election. On Thursday, for the first time, Mr. Trump in a tweet suggested the vote be delayed "until people can properly, securely and safely vote," something he cannot legally do.
Even for Mr. Trump, suggesting a delay in the election is an extraordinary breach of presidential decorum that will increase the chances that Mr. Trump and his core supporters don't accept the legitimacy of the election should he lose to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
"With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history," Mr. Trump wrote. "It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???"
While the White House has officially denied Mr. Trump has any interest in changing the date of the election from Nov. 3, some of his allies and top aides have on occasion floated the possibility.
Mr. Trump has no authority to unilaterally change the date of the election, which is set by federal law. His suggestion comes as polls show him trailing far behind Mr. Biden in surveys of nearly all of the key battleground states. And Mr. Trump's claim that mail voting leads to inaccurate counts or fraud is false.
But the president's sustained attacks on mail voting, combined with Democratic efforts to encourage more of their voters to request and submit absentee ballots by mail, has led to a significant Democratic advantage in mail voting. In April, the liberal candidate for a Wisconsin state Supreme Court race performed about 10 percentage points better in ballots cast by mail than she did on Election Day, according to a New York Times analysis of the returns.
During the presidential primaries, states that shifted their balloting largely to the mail saw far larger voter turnout than did states that held their contests primarily in person. In Montana, which sent ballots to every registered voter in the state, 63 percent of registered voters cast ballots, the highest percentage in the nation, according to the National Vote at Home Institute, which encourages voting by mail. Seven of the nine lowest-turnout states held contests primarily in person, the institute found.
New York Times, July 30, 2020
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July 30, 2020
Voices4America Post Script. Repeat after me: "Trump has no authority to unilaterally change the date of the election, which is set by federal law." Nevertheless, the Fascist in the White House has big, anti-Democracy dreams. #Biden2020 #Vote
