Trump and Biden warn of election stealing
Candidates focused on mail ballots, voter rights
WASHINGTON – Five months before the election in November, the incumbent president and his Democratic challenger each tell Americans his opponent could “steal” the election, perhaps setting the stage for a contentious fight even after the voting is over.
The warnings from President Donald Trump and presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden are louder and earlier than in 2016, when Trump decried a “rigged” political system in the final weeks before his victory over Hillary Clinton.
Both men’s rhetoric is largely aimed at the same issue – vote-bymail, which Biden and Democrats support to allow citizens to vote safely amid the coronavirus pandemic and which Trump strongly opposes. Trump has long stoked fears of election stealing. Wednesday, Biden ramped up his attacks on the president over voter access.
“It’s my greatest concern, my single greatest concern: This president is going to steal this election,” the former vice president said in an interview with host Trevor Noah on “The Daily Show.” “This is a guy who said all mailin ballots are fraudulent, direct voting by mail, while he sits behind a desk in the Oval Office and writes his mail-in ballot to vote in the primary.”
Tim Murtaugh, communication director for the Trump campaign, called Biden’s remarks “just another brainless conspiracy theory from Joe Biden as he continues to try to undermine confidence in our elections.”
“President Trump has been clear that he will accept the results of the 2020 election,” he said.
Matt Grossman, an associate political scientist at Michigan State University, said the “polarized information” in politics makes for legitimate fears in the public that losers of an election won’t respect the outcome. He said election laws that differ state-by-state can further fuel suspicions.
“Obviously, that becomes more of a concern if you have a close electoral outcome, especially one where there’s some type of post-Election Day problems in getting all of the results,” Grossman said. “Unfortunately, we’re kind of headed that way.”
Several states, led by secretaries of states of both parties, have taken action to make voting by mail available to all voters or more widespread.
Thirty-four states and Washington, D.C., offered absentee voting by mail to all registered voters without an excuse before the pandemic. To keep people from packing polls during a health crisis, some states sent mail-ballot applications to all voters. California will send mail ballots to all voters for the election in November, joining five other states that conduct their elections entirely by mail.
In several of the 16 states where voters must provide an excuse to receive an absentee ballot – being over 65 years old, out of town during Election Day or in the military, for example – they can cite coronavirus as a reason.
Only five states, each in the South, have not taken legislative action to expand voting by mail, but legal challenges could force them to change. A judge in Tennessee ruled last week the state must make absentee ballots available to all voters during the pandemic. The state is likely to appeal.
A USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll last month found 65% of Americans support vote-by-mail as an alternative to in-person voting during the pandemic, compared with 32% of Americans who oppose the option.
Trump has been on a crusade for weeks against vote-by-mail, arguing it leads to voter fraud, “vote harvesting” and hurts Republican candidates.
Last month he tweeted, “The United States cannot have all Mail In Ballots. It will be the greatest Rigged Election in history.”