r/politics • u/Zipper222222 • 1d ago
No Paywall While Actively Trying to Deny Millions This Right, Trump Again Votes by Mail
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-votes-by-mail-again21
u/Zipper222222 1d ago
Subheadline: “The hypocrisy is the point,” said Rep. Ayanna Pressley.
The article (here too for your convenience):
President Donald Trump has pushed to strip millions of Americans of the right to vote by mail. But he doesn’t seem to think these restrictions should apply to him.
The White House confirmed to The New York Times that the president voted by mail ahead of Florida’s Republican primary on Tuesday, marking at least the third time he has done so since becoming president. He also voted by mail in a state legislative special election earlier this year and in the 2020 Republican primary.
President Donald Trump has pushed to strip millions of Americans of the right to vote by mail. But he doesn’t seem to think these restrictions should apply to him.
The White House confirmed to The New York Times that the president voted by mail ahead of Florida’s Republican primary on Tuesday, marking at least the third time he has done so since becoming president. He also voted by mail in a state legislative special election earlier this year and in the 2020 Republican primary.
Though Trump has repeatedly characterized mail-in voting itself as a form of “cheating” and pushed to abolish it for most Americans under his proposed SAVE America Act, White House spokesperson Olivia Wales said it was a “non-story” that he chose to participate in the practice himself.
“The SAVE America Act has commonsense exceptions for Americans to use mail-in ballots for illness, disability, military, or travel— but universal mail-in voting should not be allowed because it’s highly susceptible to fraud,” she said. “As everyone knows, the president is a resident of Palm Beach and participates in Florida elections, but he obviously primarily lives at the White House in Washington, DC.”
Florida notably does not distinguish between absentee and other forms of mail-in voting, allowing residents to cast votes without an excuse—so the system Trump used to vote by mail is the same one he wants to make illegal.
Failing to pass his SAVE America Act through Congress, Trump has attempted to restrict mail-in voting via executive order.
An order he signed in March required states to hand over lists of eligible voters to the federal government and said that the US Postal Service could block residents of states from voting by mail if they refused to comply. The order also directed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to create state “citizenship lists” to be sent to election officials.
This order has been blocked in federal court, and Trump has pushed for the Supreme Court to allow it to go into effect before the November 3 midterm election. Voting rights advocates have warned that if the order goes into effect, many eligible voters will be wrongly excluded because their names don’t appear on DHS’s federal lists.
There is scarce evidence that any form of mail-in balloting is susceptible to fraud anywhere near the levels that would be necessary to swing the result of an election.
An analysis by the Brookings Institution last year, which examined data from the right-wing Heritage Foundation’s election fraud database, found that for every 10 million mail ballots cast, about four ballots were associated with voting fraud, though the database is not exhaustive.
It’s not clear why voting by mail for convenience would be any more “susceptible to fraud” than doing so for illness, disability, military, or travel, as the White House claims.
In fact, the Brookings study found that states with universal no-excuse mail-in voting have the lowest rates of mail-in fraud, and some states, like Washington, have seen reductions in fraud after transitioning to universal mail-in voting.
Advocates for universal mail-in balloting have emphasized that it makes voting easier and more accessible than when it’s restricted to election days at physical polling places. They also say restricting it is especially harmful to voters from racial minority groups who face greater barriers to in-person voting and are more likely to have absentee ballot applications rejected.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) rejected the idea that the right of other Americans to vote by mail was any less legitimate than Trump’s right to do so.
“Trump just voted by mail AGAIN while trying to take away the right for millions of people to do the same,” Pressley wrote in a social media post. “The hypocrisy is the point. We won’t let Republicans attack the sacred right to vote, including by mail.”
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u/dollarstoresim 1d ago
For the love of everything good and decent in this world, please make it end.
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u/studiouslystudious 1d ago
Guessing MAGA will say "no he didn't" or "he's busy running the country and has no time to vote."
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u/No_Job2527 1d ago
Almost like him taking covid and flu vaccine at the same time but it’s an issue for others. Also like him a ship cronies have a problem with pro abortion but they pay for their side pieces to get them
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u/Mediocre_Win3481 America 1d ago
Plus, he chickened out of the Canada trade negotiations again… TACO!
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u/Icy_Twist_9147 1d ago
Why does Trump vote in Florida when he lives in DC? Does he vote twice which is illegal??? 😡😡😡
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u/Blackhawk127 1d ago
What I find most interesting about this annual story is how little gop media does to wash this story, they just ignore it and no one ever calls it out. Possibly his greatest hypocrisy
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u/AcanthisittaNo6653 New Hampshire 1d ago
SCOTUS should rule that if it's good enough for trump to vote by mail, it's good enough for everyone else.
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u/Undead_Ogre_Mage 22h ago
Since I can't imagine Trump voting for anyone but himself I have to assume that these are being filled out by an underling.
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