President Trump is continuing his crusade against statewide voting-by-mail, a program many states are working to expand for the November general election to make voting safer as the country continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a Tuesday morning tweet, Trump baselessly implied that California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) executive order earlier this month — which allows the state’s county elections officials to send registered voters mail-in ballots ahead of the general election — will lead to voter fraud.
….living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get one. That will be followed up with professionals telling all of these people, many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2020
Trump’s latest tirade against mail-in voting initiatives, which was similar to his reaction to Newsom’s executive order announcement earlier this month, comes just days after the Republican National Committee filed a lawsuit against California’s efforts to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus ahead of the general election.
RNC chair Ronna McDaniel accused Newsom of attempting to “redesign our entire election system” through his mail-in voting initiative in a Sunday evening tweet.
I am pleased to announce that the RNC, @NRCC & @CAGOP just sued Gavin Newsom over his illegal election power grab.
His radical plan is a recipe for disaster that would create more opportunities for fraud & destroy the confidence Californians deserve to have in their elections.
— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) May 24, 2020
Make no mistake, Democrats are trying to use this pandemic to redesign our entire election system for political gain, and we will not let their brazen attempts go unchallenged.
Go to https://t.co/ImFKSGulau and help us fight back!
— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) May 24, 2020
The President’s Tuesday tweet also comes a week after he threw a fit over mail-in voting initiatives advanced by the governors of Michigan and Nevada. Shortly after falsely accusing Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson of sending voters absentee ballots — which he later clarified were actually just mail-in voting applications — Trump went on to make a virtually identical threat against Nevada for sending mail-in ballots to voters ahead of its June primary elections.
