You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Trump on Counting Votes Beyond Election Day: “I Don’t Believe That’s by Our Laws”

HeadlineOct 28, 2020

President Trump continues to attack mail-in ballots, claiming it would be inappropriate to count any ballots received after Election Day.

President Donald Trump: “It would be very, very proper and very nice if a winner were declared on November 3rd, instead of counting ballots for two weeks, which is totally inappropriate. And I don’t believe that that’s by our laws. I don’t believe that.”

On Monday the Supreme Court ruled mail-in ballots in Wisconsin can be counted only if they are received by Election Day. In other states, including Pennsylvania, ballots postmarked by November 3rd can be counted. Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion has alarmed voting rights advocates. Kavanaugh said counting ballots received after Election Day could create “suspicions of impropriety” because they could “potentially flip the results of an election.” One voting rights expert slammed Kavanaugh for adopting a “Trumpian mind-set.”

Meanwhile, many voting rights groups are now urging voters to drop off absentee ballots in person instead of relying on the U.S. Postal Service to deliver them in time due to cutbacks implemented by the new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, a major supporter of President Trump.

In other voting news, the Texas Supreme Court has backed Republican Governor Greg Abbott’s order limiting ballot drop box sites to just one per county.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top