On Thursday Donald Trump questioned whether or not he should delay the upcoming presidential elections in November due to mail-in voting, which he says leads to voter fraud.
“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???”
Donald Trump does not have the authority to delay the election. The Consitution gives Congress the authority to set the date for voting–the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. And with a Democratically controlled House, the likelihood of that happening no matter the circumstances is very slim.
Donald Trump is once again trying to circumvent voting while laying the groundwork to discredit the result of the November elections if he loses and current polling shows him trailing Joe Biden by double digits.
This has been a concern for Democrats and was raised at Tuesday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing with Attorney General Bill Barr. He was asked if Trump can change the date of the election. His response: “I haven’t looked into that question, under the Constitution.”
Attorney General Barr giving a fairly nuanced answer to a straightforward question did not do much to silence Trump’s critics that he won’t at least try to delay the presidential elections, given Barr’s track record.
Donald Trump floats the idea of delaying the presidential election due to mail-in voting.
