Trump, Who Lacks the Authority to Do So, Suggests Delaying the Election

The tweet escalates his longstanding attacks against measures designed to expand ballot access.

Bob Daemmrich/ZUMA

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As his poll numbers continue to drop, President Trump on Thursday floated the idea of postponing the November election, now less than 100 days away, falsely claiming that mail-in voting will lead to rampant voter fraud. It would require an act of Congress to delay the election.

It’s the first time Trump has publicly proposed delaying the election. But in many ways, the tweet seems like an inevitable progression from his longstanding attacks against measures designed to expand ballot access, such as widespread absentee and mail-in voting, as states struggle to work out plans for conducting elections during the coronavirus pandemic. Democrats have long warned that Trump would push for a delay. They also worry that the president might refuse to accept defeat if he loses, which he openly hinted at as recently as last week.

“Mark my words: I think he is going to try to kick back the election somehow, come up with some rationale why it can’t be held,” Joe Biden told supporters in April, as Trump continued to promote misleading and false claims about mail-in voting and accused Democrats of trying to “steal the election.”

Trump, in all likelihood, knows that he lacks the legal authority to postpone the election. But in finally saying the quiet part out loud this morning, he could be hoping to distract from the grim news that the US just suffered its biggest drop in GDP on record. Might as well throw some casual voter fraud lies into the mix.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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