Donald Trump has described voting by mail as “cheating” at an event in Memphis, Tennessee, just days after casting a mail‑in ballot himself. The US president said on Monday: “Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating. I call it mail-in cheating, and we got to do something about it all.”
Records show Trump voted by mail in the special election for House district 87, which encompasses his Mar-a-Lago golf club, according to the Palm Beach county supervisor of elections website. Trump has endorsed the Republican candidate, Jon Maples, in the race against Democrat Emily Gregory. He chose to mail his ballot even though he has recently been in Palm Beach where early in-person voting was available until Sunday evening.
In recent months, Trump has renewed his baseless claims that the practice is subject to widespread fraud, as he pressures Senate Republicans to pass a restrictive voting bill that would require proof of US citizenship for new voters, as well as other measures. The president is also pushing for amendments to the legislation, notably a ban on mail-in ballots with limited exceptions.
On social media, Trump has railed against voting by mail, calling it a “scam”, and has vowed to gut the process. During his State of the Union address last month, he demanded “no more crooked mail-in ballots”. Many election experts say that the president’s relentless attacks on mail-in voting over the years undermine overall trust in the democratic process, and that there are extensive checks and balances by local officials to mitigate most fraud.
The White House spokesperson Olivia Wales called Trump’s decision to vote by mail “a non-story”. “As President Trump has said, the SAVE America Act has commonsense exceptions for Americans to use mail-in ballots for illness, disability, military, or travel – but universal mail-in voting should not be allowed because it’s highly susceptible to fraud,” Wales added. “As everyone knows, the President is a resident of Palm Beach and participates in Florida elections, but he obviously primarily lives at the White House in Washington, D.C.”
