Donald Trump claims mail in voting is a recipe for election fraud. He says this sort of thing a lot.
This has created a bit of public relations problem because Trump has voted remotely in his current home state of Florida. His Press Secretary, Kayleigh McEnany has never voted in person, instead mailing in her Florida ballots eleven times. The obvious criticism here is that these elitist Republicans love to vote by mail, they just don’t want us regular folks to do so.
However, Trump and McEnany offer the excuse that their voting by mail is different because they are “absentee voting.” As McEnany said:
“The president’s been very clear. Every American is entitled to vote the way that I did if you are someone who is working out of state, that your domicile is in a different state, you are absolutely entitled to request an absentee ballot and to cast your ballot by mail. The president has no qualms with that. He’s for absentee voting for a reason.”
McEnany, who once promised to never lie to us, is lying. Neither she nor Trump has ever requested an absentee ballot from Florida or voted by absentee ballot in Florida. The reason for this is simple. Florida does not have absentee ballots. Florida does not have absentee ballots or balloting or absentee ballot applications.
Florida does not have absentee ballots, or absentee ballot requests or applications, for a very simple reason. Florida allows no excuse voting by mail. One does not request an absentee ballot, one just requests to vote by mail, which anyone can do for any reason or no reason at all. You can even designated a proxy to pick up your vote by mail ballot for you.
In short, this is precisely the kind of mass, free voting by mail that the President and McEnany insist leads to wide spread voter fraud. The Florida Division of Elections website is quite clear about this:
“Vote-by-mail refers to voting a ballot received by mail or picked up by or for a voter instead of going to the polls to vote during early voting period or Election Day. Except on Election Day, no excuse is needed to vote a vote-by-mail ballot.”
If being able to freely vote by mail is a recipe for widespread voter fraud then Florida is stewing in it and Trump, along with his press secretary, are among the cooks. Trump, and his people, love to vote by mail, they just don’t want us regular folks to be able to do what they do all the time. It’s a simple case of them thinking they are better and more entitled than the rest of us.