US President Donald Trump voted by absentee ballot this week in a local election in Florida, even as he criticized that voting method as “fraud”, trying to push through national legislation that would establish new voting regulations.
Trump voted by absentee ballot in the Palm Beach County election held today for state senator and state representative, according to county public records.
At an event in Memphis, Tennessee yesterday (Monday), Trump rejected this method of exercising the right to vote, making unsubstantiated claims that absentee ballots are more vulnerable to fraud.
“Postal voting means postal fraud. I call it postal fraud and we have to do something about all this. And it’s part of Homeland Security,” Trump said at a roundtable discussion on crime.
The U.S. president said Sunday that Republicans in his party should not reach a deal on funding for the Department of Homeland Security until Democrats in Congress approve a bill – the SAVE America Act – that requires people who register to vote to provide proof of U.S. citizenship.
Trump also pushed for Democratic approval of other items he wants added to the bill, such as banning trans women from women’s sports, banning “genital mutilation (genital mutilation),” and banning the use of the “female genitalia” in women’s sports.s.) of our transgender children” and restricting absentee ballots except in cases of illness, disability, military service or travel.
The White House said Trump is a resident of Palm Beach and is running in the Florida election, but lives primarily in the White House.
“As President Trump has said, the SAVE America Act has common-sense exceptions for Americans to use absentee ballots for illness, disability, military service or travel – but universal absentee voting should not be allowed because it is particularly vulnerable to fraud,” White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said via email.
However, voter fraud is rare in absentee voting. Standard methods and the decentralized nature of US elections make it very difficult to interfere with absentee ballots, experts say.
It was not the first time Trump has voted by absentee ballot.
He had voted that way in the 2018 midterm elections, a White House spokesman said at the time. Trump had requested an absentee ballot but decided to vote by physical presence in 2020.
