President Trump launched another attack on mail-in voting Monday morning, claiming that foreign nations would print “millions” of mail-in ballots.
“RIGGED 2020 ELECTION: MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES, AND OTHERS. IT WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES!” Trump tweeted without providing evidence.
The president in a subsequent post said the 2020 election would be the “most RIGGED” in U.S. history due to mail-in ballots unless “this stupidity is ended.”
“We voted during World War One & World War Two with no problem, but now they are using Covid in order to cheat by using Mail-Ins!” he added.
Trump has frequently taken aim at mail-in voting as the coronavirus pandemic has increased calls for more ballot options, despite voting by mail himself in the Florida 2020 Republican primary.
In April, he claimed that “you get thousands and thousands of people sitting in somebody’s living room, signing ballots all over the place” when mail-in voting is allowed.
Asked by reporters for evidence, he responded, “I think there’s a lot of evidence, but we’ll provide you with some, OK?”
Trump’s attacks on mail-in voting earlier this year prompted Twitter for the first time to append a fact-check to two of his tweets after he erroneously claimed that California planned to send mail-in ballots to all residents of the state. Trump responded by blasting the fact-checking process, saying it was “based on fact-checking by Fake News CNN and the Amazon Washington Post.” Mail-in ballots are already in use in several states, particularly in the West, including Oregon and Utah.
Shortly after the fact-check, Trump signed an executive order targeting legal protections for social media platforms, directing an agency within the Commerce Department to file a petition with the Federal Communications Commission to clarify the scope of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
–This report was updated at 10:48 a.m.