Trump calls mail-in ballots 'dishonest' but says absentee ballots are 'fine.' They're the same thing.

Authored by theweek.com and submitted by TheWeekMag

President Trump's campaign against mail-in voting relies on a fundamental misunderstanding of what the process even is.

Even amid a global pandemic that makes it dangerous to gather in public and definitely dangerous to vote in person, Trump has railed against the safer option of mass mail-in voting. He repeated his false claim that mail-in voting is wracked with fraud in a Friday tweet, but then decided "absentee ballots are fine because you have to go through a precise process to get your voting privilege." There's one big problem with that: Absentee and mail-in ballots are the same thing.

....Absentee Ballots are fine because you have to go through a precise process to get your voting privilege. Not so with Mail-Ins. Rigged Election!!! 20% fraudulent ballots? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 10, 2020

Despite what Trump says, getting a ballot by mail — an absentee ballot, one might say — in most states requires filing an application complete with one's signature. Five states have all-mail elections and haven't faced any major issues or fraud throughout the years.

Trump has made this inequivalence between absentee and mail-in voting many times in the past. He's often used it to justify why he has voted by mail many times in the past even when there was no global health threat keeping him from going to the polls. Administration officials have also tried to claim mail-in voting is problematic despite using the process several times themselves. Kathryn Krawczyk

aji23 on July 10th, 2020 at 14:42 UTC »

Hold on hold on! Instead of making fun of him for it, just tell him “ok fine, we won’t ask for mail-in voting. We agree we should do absentee instead! Great idea, Mr. President! We will all vote by absentee ballot. Can we get that in writing right now?”

BitterFuture on July 10th, 2020 at 14:00 UTC »

Please, please, please, please bring this up in a debate, Joe. Please.

"You've said that mail-in ballots are fraudulent, but absentee voting is fine. Real quick, can you just tell me what absentee voting is? Seriously, explain it to me like I'm a child. I'll wait."

wraithtek on July 10th, 2020 at 13:58 UTC »

He wants the ability for he and his staff - rich people in a position of power - to vote by mail, but he doesn't want anyone else to have that option. There are absolutely zero facts suggesting vote by mail is more prone to fraud. They just don't want more people voting. They don't want people who work for a living, who are busy with one or more jobs and raising a family, to have the convenience of filling out their ballot at home and dropping it in the mail (instead of potentially standing in a long line for hours to fill out a ballot in person).

Fortunately, this really isn't up to him. Unfortunately, a lot of Republican state politicians in red and purple states will work towards this same end - to keep people from safely exercising their constitutional right.