It is a crime to vote twice, but President Donald Trump apparently wants his followers to try doing so anyway. After telling supporters via a North Carolina television interview that they should cast a mail-in ballot and then try and vote in-person in order to supposedly test the security of the system (which he claims is faulty), Trump belligerently doubled down on Twitter on Thursday.
President Trump told his North Carolina supporters to try to vote twice — it’s a Class I felony “to induce” someone to do this. https://t.co/vgF33Fpz0S
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) September 3, 2020
In a belligerent rant, he insisted that “in order for you to MAKE SURE YOUR VOTE COUNTS & IS COUNTED,” folks should “SIGN & MAIL IN your Ballot as EARLY as possible.” Then, he said, those same people should “go to [their] Polling Place to see whether or not [their] Mail In Vote has been Tabulated (Counted).” The method that he suggested using to see if their mail-in ballot had been counted was trying to vote a second time, which he said would be blocked if the other ballot had been counted. Voting twice is a crime. Does he even know that many voters can simply track the status of their mail-in ballot online? He sounds like he doesn’t, since he’s come up with this half-baked conspiratorial plan to try and game the system. He’s suggesting committing a crime to solve a non-existent problem of some kind of systematic issue with mail-in voting.
My theory: Trump knows he's going to lose in a fair fight. So he tells his supporters to vote twice, knowing some of them are dumb enough to try. When they get arrested, he'll claim that Trump voters are being targeted, deep state, rigged, etc. but Ds are getting away w "fraud"
— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) September 3, 2020
He added:
‘If your Mail In Ballot arrives after you Vote, which it should not, that Ballot will not be used or counted in that your vote has already been cast & tabulated. YOU ARE NOW ASSURED THAT YOUR PRECIOUS VOTE HAS BEEN COUNTED, it hasn’t been “lost, thrown out, or in any way destroyed”. GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!’
It’s amazing that he ended his rant with an all-caps message of “GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!” as if he’s just sputtering out whatever vaguely patriotic nonsense comes to mind.
Trump is, it seems, profoundly ignorant about the way that the system works, including the security measures that are in-place for mail-in voting, and he is encouraging his supporters to attempt to commit a crime — voting twice — in order to fall in line with his ignorance.
Democratic Congressman Don Beyer of Virginia commented:
‘Voting twice is illegal. The country deserves a President who does not encourage his supporters to commit crimes, and who can participate in an election without cheating.’
Voting twice is illegal. The country deserves a President who does not encourage his supporters to commit crimes, and who can participate in an election without cheating. https://t.co/N1TiSru7B5
— Rep. Don Beyer (@RepDonBeyer) September 3, 2020
Check out other Twitter replies to the president below:
