For the first time, U.S. President Donald Trump is suggesting delaying this year’s election.
Trump, on Twitter on Thursday morning, alleged, without evidence, that mail-in balloting would be make the 2020 presidential balloting the “most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history.”
The president added: “It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???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, 2020The president does not have the power to delay the election, which is to be held November 3rd. The date is set by Congress under the Constitution.
Delaying the election would violate American law, wrote presidential historian Michael Beschloss on Twitter.
“Never in American history—not even during the Civil War and World War II–has there been a successful move to ‘Delay the Election’ for President,” said Beschloss, the author of ten books about American history.Never in American history—not even during the Civil War and World War II–has there been a successful move to “Delay the Election” for President.— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) July 30, 2020Polls indicate Trump is significantly trailing the presumptive Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden in key battleground states.
The director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Chris Krebs, told the Brookings Institution on July 17th, “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The 2020 election will be the most secure election in modern history.”
US Officials Promising ‘Most Secure Election in Modern History’The officials say while the November presidential election will not be risk free, defense and back-up systems should guarantee a free and fair resultKrebs said that said at least 92% of U.S. states now have systems in place to ensure there is a paper record of every vote cast, making it easier to audit election results to make sure no one is able to tamper with the tally. And that number could rise as a growing number of states are expected to turn to mail-in ballots instead of in-person voting because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.VOA’s Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
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