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2020 Election Live Updates: Trump Floats Whether to ‘Delay the Election,’ Something He Cannot Legally Do
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.
His suggestion came minutes after the Commerce Department announced that the nation’s gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced, fell 9.5 percent during the three months ending June 30, the largest quarterly drop on record.
“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???”
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 mailthan 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.
At a White House coronavirus briefing in April, Mr. Trump affirmed that “the general election will happen on Nov. 3,” when asked whether his administration had taken steps to ensure it would not be derailed by the pandemic. But later in the same news conference, he baselessly asserted that “a lot of people cheat with mail-in voting” and argued that “people should vote with I.D.”
About five weeks later, Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, refused to rule out postponing the presidential election in an interview with Time magazine, despite lacking the authority to do so: “I’m not sure I can commit one way or the other, but right now that’s the plan.” But he later sought to clarify his remark, saying he had “not been involved in, nor am I aware of, any discussions about trying to change the date of the presidential election.” And a White House official tried to downplay the comment, saying Mr. Kushner had been fully aware that the date of the election was set by federal law.
And earlier this month, in a television interview with Fox News, Mr. Trump declined to say whether he would accept the results of the 2020 election, echoing remarks he made in 2016. “It depends. I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election. I really do.” Pressed further on whether he would accept the results, Mr. Trump said, “I have to see.”
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.
His suggestion came minutes after the Commerce Department announced that the nation’s gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced, fell 9.5 percent during the three months ending June 30, the largest quarterly drop on record.
“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???”
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 mailthan 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.
At a White House coronavirus briefing in April, Mr. Trump affirmed that “the general election will happen on Nov. 3,” when asked whether his administration had taken steps to ensure it would not be derailed by the pandemic. But later in the same news conference, he baselessly asserted that “a lot of people cheat with mail-in voting” and argued that “people should vote with I.D.”
About five weeks later, Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, refused to rule out postponing the presidential election in an interview with Time magazine, despite lacking the authority to do so: “I’m not sure I can commit one way or the other, but right now that’s the plan.” But he later sought to clarify his remark, saying he had “not been involved in, nor am I aware of, any discussions about trying to change the date of the presidential election.” And a White House official tried to downplay the comment, saying Mr. Kushner had been fully aware that the date of the election was set by federal law.
And earlier this month, in a television interview with Fox News, Mr. Trump declined to say whether he would accept the results of the 2020 election, echoing remarks he made in 2016. “It depends. I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election. I really do.” Pressed further on whether he would accept the results, Mr. Trump said, “I have to see.”