After facing an incredibly low rally turnout in Tulsa, Oklahoma this weekend, Donald Trump seems to be taking steps to preemptively delegitimize the November election. He tweeted a prediction Monday that the election will be “rigged” by “foreign countries, and others” planning to print out “millions of mail-in ballots.”
That totally baseless scenario, he wrote, “will be the scandal of our times.”
RIGGED 2020 ELECTION: MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES, AND OTHERS. IT WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2020
Trump has been attacking mail-in voting for months but his post-Tulsa tweets are really accelerating the conspiracy theory that Democrats and foreign powers are going to steal the election via the mail. It reeks of panic.
Because of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, 2020 will be the most RIGGED Election in our nations history – 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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2020
Trump appears to be setting the groundwork to contest the election if/when he loses. Attorney General William Barr has been backing Trump up in his false predictions of illegitimacy, telling Fox News this weekend that mail-in voting “absolutely opens the floodgates to fraud.”
These claims that mail-in voting will lead to massive fraud aren’t based in reality. All-mail voting (where every registered voter is mailed a ballot) and absentee voting (where a registered voter can request a ballot by mail) are really secure systems with safeguards intact to make sure they stay that way. Opponents like to point out that voting by mail is the system of voting with the highest amount of fraud, which is technically true, but it still only results in an infinitesimal number of fraudulent ballots.
Trump, who has voted by mail multiple times over the years, likely knows this. But he’s not trying to win the November election on merit. He’s relying on his tried-and-true methods of disinformation, voter suppression, and repeating a lie until it sticks.
(image: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
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