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President Trump suggests delaying 2020 presidential election

3 years 8 months 3 weeks ago Thursday, July 30 2020 Jul 30, 2020 July 30, 2020 9:02 AM July 30, 2020 in News
Source: CNN

President Donald Trump took to Twitter Thursday, to suggest delaying November's presidential election.

According to CNN, some consider this an indication Mr. Trump will attempt to circumvent voting should election statistics show he's poised to lose. 

In his Thursday morning tweet, which was posted 96 days before the election and minutes after the federal government reported the worst economic contraction in recorded history, the president floated the idea of delaying the election, citing possibility that should the contest proceed as scheduled, it will be flawed.

"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," he wrote. "Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???"

Despite the president's claim, there is no evidence that mail-in voting leads to fraud and the president does not actually have authority to delay an election, instead, the Constitution gives Congress the power to set the date for voting.

Mr. Trump's tweet comes as a spate of recent polling in battleground states -- and even states he won handily in 2016 -- show him trailing or virtually tied with former Vice President Joe Biden, and widespread disapproval of his handling of the pandemic.

Asked about the issue in a House Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, Attorney General William Barr said he had "no reason to think" that the upcoming election will be "rigged." But he did say he believes that "if you have wholesale mail-in voting, it substantially increases the risk of fraud."

However, history reveals that voting by mail has not led to massive voter fraud. And nonpartisan election experts say the possibility of foreign entities printing millions of fraudulent mail-in ballots this November is highly unlikely.

The President does not have the power to change the date of the election. Election Day is set by congressional statute, and most experts agree that it cannot be changed without congressional approval.

Biden has previously raised the possibility of Trump attempting to delay the election.

"Mark my words: I think he is gonna try to kick back the election somehow, come up with some rationale why it can't be held," Biden said at a virtual fundraiser in April, according to a pool report.

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