The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
State leaders react to Trump’s delay-the-election tweet
“There is no emergency power that allows the president to delay the election or block the transfer of power.”
State Attorney General William Tong
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump, lagging in the polls and grappling with deepening economic and public health crises, on Thursday floated the startling idea of delaying the Nov. 3 presidential election. The notion drew immediate pushback from Democrats and Republicans alike in a nation that has held itself up as a beacon to the world for its history of peaceful transfer of power.
In Connecticut, Democrats reacted angrily and the Republican state chairman downplayed the idea as a radical concept.
Trump suggested the delay as he pushed unsubstantiated allegations that increased mail-in voting due to the coronavirus pandemic would result in fraud. But shifting Election Day is virtually impossible and the very idea represented another bracing attempt by Trump to undermine confidence in the American political system.
The date of the presidential election — the Tuesday after the first Monday in November in every fourth year — is enshrined in federal law and would require an act of Congress to change.
Top Republicans in Congress quickly rebuffed Trump’s suggestion. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the election date is set in stone and House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy said the election
“should go forward” as planned. Regardless, the Constitution makes no provisions for a delay in the end of Trump's term — noon on Jan. 20, 2021.
“With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history,” Trump tweeted Thursday. “It will
be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???”
In a press briefing Thursday evening, he doubled down on the idea, speaking at length about how he thought states’ decisions to mail ballots to voters would result in fraud. He claimed it might takes weeks, months or years to get the final results.
“Do I want to see a date change? No,” he said. “But I don’t want to see a crooked election.”
In fact, only five states conduct elections entirely by mail, although more states expect to rely more heavily on mail-in ballots in November because of the virus outbreak.
Connecticut’s Secretary of the State Denise Merrill has sent applications for absentee ballots to every registered Republican and Democrat in the state for the upcoming party primaries, and a bill passed during the recent legislative special session that Gov. Ned Lamont said he will sign, will allow voters who are afraid of going to the polls because of the coronavirus to use mail-in ballots for the November general election.
Lamont, asked about Trump’s tweet during his daily news briefing, said “We’re ready. The states are ready, and it is a really lousy idea.”
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, in a statement, said the president’s
tweet was an indicator that the Trump realizes he’s in danger of losing re-election.
“Facing dismal polling, Trump now threatens the unthinkable—to postpone the election,” Tong said in a statement. “This blatantly unlawful threat is clearly in violation of the U.S. Constitution, and the fact that we are even discussing the legality of this rant is a glaring threat to our democracy. The Constitution empowers Congress to set election timing. There is no emergency power that allows the president to delay the election or block the transfer of power. It is the states’ duty to hold the election, seat electors, and certify our results to Congress. Connecticut will hold its election and perform its duty to elect a President.”
Merrill, the state’s top election official, tweeted a one-word response to Trump: “No.”
But J.R. Romano, GOP state chairman who plans to fly to Charlotte, N.C. next month for the truncated Republican National Convention activities, said Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont changed the state’s primary elections twice during the coronavirus pandemic, finally settling on August 11.
“We've moved elections here in Connecticut, because of COVID,” Romano said. “There are states that are not prepared for the chain of custody needed to keep track of ballots. The idea is it's simply about fraud. Most of the mail-in states have infrastructure that has been in place for 10 years.”
He pointed to last year's absentee-ballot scandal in Bridgeport's Democratic mayoral primary that is still under investigation by the State Elections Enforcement Commission.
“I'm not opposed to mailin balloting,” he said. “Voting in a presidential election is literally the most-important thing a citizen can do,” Romano said.
Romano noted eight recounts in the 2018 legislative races, and that 28 races were decided by less than 1 percent of the vote. “These margins are tiny, and 10 or 15 votes could result in a shift of the entire General Assembly. What if a ballot box [outside city and town halls to collect ballots] is destroyed, would President Trump be right?”
Trump charged after winning the 2016 election that millions of votes were illegally cast for his opponent, former Secetary of State Hillary Clinton. No evidence of such wrongdoing has emerged.
Trump’s comments came on a day when the Commerce Department reported the nation’s economy shrank at an annual rate of 32.9 percent in the spring quarter, an all-time record, due to the coronavirus shutdown.
Nancy DiNardo, chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee, blasted Trump.
“It’s bad enough that Donald Trump would advocate for subverting a national election on the day that America is eulogizing John Lewis, one of the greatest advocates of voting rights,” DiNardo said in a statement. “It’s unconscionable that he continues to use his position as President of the United States to undermine confidence in our most basic right: voting. So, very simply, no."
DiNardo, in response to Romano, said that primary dates differ at all levels of government and those dates can change by legislative or municipal action. In fact, Lamont used his executive power in the public health emergency to move the dates of Connecticut’s primaries.
“J.R. knows the difference
between that and Election Day,” DiNardo continued. “Even Mitch McConnell rejects the idea of a delay. The Connecticut Republicans’ fealty to Donald Trump seems to know no bounds.”
With just over three months until Election Day, Trump trails in the polls nationally and across battleground states, and some surveys even suggest traditionally Republican-leaning states could be in play. While Trump has come back before after trailing consistently in the polls throughout 2016, the survey data has raised the possibility that he could face a landslide loss if he doesn’t turn things around.
Trump has increasingly sought to cast doubt on November’s election and the expected pandemic-induced surge in mail-in and absentee voting. He has called remote voting options the “biggest risk” to his reelection. His campaign and the Republican Party have sued to combat the practice, which was once a significant advantage for the GOP.
There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud through mail-in voting and the states that use it exclusively say they have necessary safeguards in place to ensure that a hostile foreign actor doesn’t disrupt the vote. Election security experts say that all forms of voter fraud are rare, including absentee balloting.