Trump Claims Mail-In Voting Will Lead to “Most Corrupt Election” in History

In a tweet earlier this morning, President Donald Trump claimed mail-in voting would lead to the “most corrupt election” in American history.

“Mail-In Voting, unless changed by the courts, will lead to the most CORRUPT ELECTION in our Nation’s History!” he wrote, finishing off his message with the hashtag #RIGGEDELECTION.

The president’s Twitter message come just days after he disparaged mail-in voting during a highly contentious Fox News interview with host Chris Wallace.

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“I’m not a good loser. I don’t like to lose. I don’t lose too often. I don’t like to lose,” Trump said at the time. “You don’t know until you see. It depends. I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election, I really do.”

The president and Republicans have repeatedly disparaged vote-by-mail options in response to criticisms from voting rights advocates who’ve expressed safety concerns during the coronavirus pandemic.

A study released in April from Stanford University’s Democracy and Polarization Lab found that contrary to the widely-held belief among the GOP that vote-by-mail gives Democrats an advantage over Republicans, vote-by-mail options do not benefit one party more than another.

“By comparing counties that adopt a vote-by-mail program to counties within the same state that do not adopt the program, we are able to compare the election outcomes and turnout behavior of voters who have different vote-by-mail accessibility but who have the same set of candidates on the ballot for statewide races,” researchers wrote.

The president has in the past threatened to withhold federal funding from states that provide residents with vote-by-mail options, as he threatened Michigan earlier this spring when state officials announced that all state residents would receive applications for absentee ballots.

Alan Herrera

Alan is a writer, editor, and news junkie based in New York.