Romney counters Trump: 90 percent of ‘very Republican’ Utah votes by mail

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) pushed back against President Trump’s claims that voting by mail disadvantages Republicans, noting that large numbers of voters in Utah, a Republican stronghold, vote by mail.

“In my state, I’ll bet 90 percent of us vote by mail. It works very, very well and it’s a very Republican state,” Romney told reporters on Capitol Hill Wednesday, according to ABC News.

Much of the Western U.S. has voted by mail for years, and a poll released Wednesday found residents of those states are among the demographics most likely to say they would prefer to vote by mail rather than in person. Nevada’s state Republican Party is currently running Facebook ads encouraging voters to mail ballots in ahead of the deadline.

Trump, who voted by mail himself in Florida’s primary this year, has stepped up his attacks on mail-in voting, threatening to withhold federal funds from Michigan after its secretary of state announced all voters would be mailed an application for an absentee ballot. Trump initially wrongly described the state as mailing out “absentee ballots” before deleting the tweet and posting a new one describing them as “applications.”

Trump sent a similar tweet about Nevada, where all active registered voters will automatically receive a mail-in ballot ahead of the June primary.

Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske (R) also pushed back, saying in a statement, “Secretary Cegavske lawfully declared the 2020 primary election as a mail-in election,” according to ABC News.

“Nevada has many safeguards in place to ensure the integrity of an all-mail election, including signature requirements and verification processes, preprinted ballot return envelopes, barcode tracking, and laws against ballot harvesting,” her office added. “Voters concerned with mailing in their ballot may drop off their ballot at any designated drop-off location in their county.”

An April study of county-level election results in Utah and California indicated offering vote by mail as an option does not advantage either party over the other.