Trump suggests delay in presidential election over coronavirus fears

Donald Trump cites coronavirus and ‘fraudulent’ voting as reasons to push back poll date. What do GOP leaders say?

Donald Trump in Midland, Texas on Thursday. Picture: AFP

President Trump floated the idea of delaying the November presidential election for the first time in a tweet Thursday, questioning whether the date should be pushed back until a time when “people can properly, securely and safely vote.”

The date of the election can only be changed by Congress. It was fixed as the first Tuesday after Nov. 1 by an act of Congress in 1845 and would require new legislation for it to be delayed. Election Day this year is Nov. 3.

Several leading Republicans and Democrats in Congress dismissed the idea of moving the election date.

Mr Trump said individual absentee voting is a good thing but criticised universal mail-in voting as inaccurate and fraudulent in his tweet Thursday.

With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020

Mr Trump and other critics of mail-in voting have said it raises the risk of fraudulent voting. But researchers have found no widespread cases of voter fraud in mail voting, and five states — Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Utah — already conduct elections primarily by mail.

Trump campaign spokesman Hogan Gidley defended the president’s tweet, saying he was “just raising a question about the chaos Democrats have created with their insistence on all mail-in voting.”

“Universal mail-in voting invites chaos and severe delays in results, as proven by the New York Congressional primary where we still don’t know who won after more than a month,” Mr Gidley said.

Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Lily Adams said Mr Trump’s comments were “nothing more than a desperate attempt to distract from today’s devastating economic numbers that make it clear his failed response to the coronavirus has tanked the U.S. economy and caused tens of millions of Americans to lose their jobs.”

The president has made several unsubstantiated claims about the election and has suggested mail-in voting would hurt the Republican Party.

“The Democrats are also trying to rig the election by sending tens of millions of ballots using the China virus as the excuse for allowing people not to go to the polls,” Mr Trump said at an event with students in Arizona last month.

He later added: “This will be, in my opinion, the most corrupt election in the history of our country, and we cannot let this happen.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) responded to Mr Trump’s tweet Thursday with a tweet quoting an excerpt from Article II, Section I of the Constitution stating that the authority to set election dates is held by Congress.

Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) also rejected moving the election date.

“Delaying the election probably wouldn’t be a good idea,” Mr Graham said. “I think we can be able to safely vote in person in November.”

In a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Attorney-General William Barr didn’t give a clear answer when asked if he believed the president could change the date of the election. “I haven’t looked into that question, under the Constitution.”

Mr Barr also said he had no reason to believe the election would be rigged, but he warned of potential voter fraud associated with mail-in voting. Mr Barr himself has voted by mail twice, he acknowledged during the hearing.

Mr Trump’s comments on Thursday come as a string of recent polls have found him trailing presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden in competitive states.

Speaking during a virtual fundraiser in April, Mr Biden suggested that Mr Trump would “try to kick back the election somehow, come up with some rationale why it can’t be held.”

In response, Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh told CNN: “Those are the incoherent, conspiracy-theory ramblings of a lost candidate who is out of touch with reality. President Trump has been clear that the election will happen on Nov. 3.”

Vote by mail, or absentee voting, is a strategy pursued by the GOP in key states, including Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Arizona, and some Republicans have worried the president’s attacks on the process could hurt Mr Trump and down-ballot candidates.

“I don’t understand why we’re turning Republicans away from a legitimate way to cast a ballot,” said Rohn Bishop, chairman of the Republican Party of Fond du Lac County, Wis.

He noted how the Florida GOP had recently doctored one of Mr Trump’s tweets to highlight words about absentee voting being fine and blur those about mail-in voting and fraud. “It has the potential to be ruinous,” Mr Bishop said.

“Part of America is we have scheduled elections and we don’t move them around,” he said. “Lincoln ran for re-election during the Civil War. We had an election during World War II.”

The Wall St Journal