Donald Trump Tells Supporters To Commit Voter Fraud In Pennsylvania
After Donald Trump received pushback for telling North Carolina voters to try casting two ballots — by mail and in-person — the president once again told his supporters to commit voter fraud, Raw Story reported.
“Sign your mail-in ballot, okay?” he said at an event in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. “You sign it and you send it in and then you have to follow it. And if, on Election Day or early voting, it’s not tabulated and counted, you go vote.”
According to Raw Story, it is illegal to cast a ballot twice, and might also be unlawful to encourage Americans to do so.
Trump then took aim at mail-in voting, which he suggests— against the advice of many experts — is susceptible to widespread fraud.
“If Russia, or China, or these other countries wanna cheat, all they have to do is forge ballots,” he said.
Per NBC News, Trump previously suggested that voters commit fraud when he was pressed by a local Wilmington news station on whether he was confident in North Carolina’s vote-by-mail system.
“So let them send it in and let them go vote, and if their system’s as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote. If it isn’t tabulated, they’ll be able to vote.”
Salon writer Igor Derysh noted in a piece for Raw Story that multiple experts believe Trump may be breaking the law by encouraging voters to commit voter fraud. Marc Elias, a top Democratic Party lawyer, claimed that Trump “committed a felony” with his comments on casting a ballot twice. Meanwhile, attorney Benjamin Wittes warned Americans that the president urged them to engage in a crime that could lead to prosecution.
When pressed on the comments, Attorney General William Barr appeared to defend Trump and said he was making a point about the possible lack of integrity in the mail-in electoral process. According to Barr, Trump’s suggestion is a way to determine the strength of the vote-by-mail system.
Anchor Wolf Blitzer noted that casting a vote twice is illegal, to which Barr pleaded ignorance on North Carolina law and refused to say whether there was a state that allowed Americans to cast two ballots.
In recent months, Trump has taken aim at mail-in voting and suggested that Democratic attempts to expand the process are a part of their plan to rig the election. He has also claimed that China is happy about these efforts and floated the idea of postponing the election until the vote-by-mail process is determined to be secure.
