Published 19:23 IST, July 30th 2020
Donald Trump calls for postponing US elections, says mail-in voting will be inaccurate
US President Donald Trump has called for ‘delaying’ the 2020 presidential elections in the United States citing mistrust over mail-in voting as 'inaccurate'.
With plunging approval ratings before the November elections, US President Donald Trump has called for ‘delaying’ the 2020 presidential elections in the United States citing mistrust over mail-in voting. According to him, this year’s elections, where he competes with Democratic nominee Joe Biden, will be ‘most inaccurate and fraudulent’ one in the history if proceeded with postal voting. This can further cause the world’s one of the biggest superpower ‘great embarrassment’. Therefore, Donald Trump has suggested that the November elections can be delayed when the Americans can vote ‘securely’ and ‘safely’.
In the latest Twitter spree, Trump said that such voting procedure would result in ‘catastrophic disaster’. He even took a dig on Democrats, who have been raising concerns over foreign interference in US elections, and said that mail-in voting would make it easier for other nations to interfere in the race for White House. He further added that postal voting does not provide an ‘accurate count’.
This came after at least six US states revealed the plans of holding ‘all-mail’ ballot elections in November including California, Utah, Hawaii, Colorado, Oregon and Washington. The mail-in voting involves the states to send automated postal ballots to all the registered voters which then have to be returned by the citizens or dropped off on the election day.
Amid the coronavirus outbreak, with soaring concerns over public health and the ability to maintain social distancing during in-person voting, many states are now resorting to postal voting which is ‘fraudulent’ according to Trump.
No evidence of fraud in mail-in voting
Even though there is no evidence of any widespread fraud in the mail-in votes according to numerous nationwide and state-level studies that have been conducted over the years, critics of this method of conducting ballots have argued that people can vote more than once through absentee ballots and in person. Donald Trump had previously said that there was a risk of ‘thousands and thousands of people’ who are sitting in their homes and signing ballots ‘all over the place’.
Updated 19:23 IST, July 30th 2020