North Carolina officials condemned President Trump for encouraging North Carolinians to try to vote twice, an attempt to “sow chaos” in the state’s election, according to the state attorney general.
On Wednesday, Trump told supporters in the state they should try to vote twice, once by mail and once in person, as a test of the security of the election process — and incidentally a way to have their vote counted twice if election officials mistakenly allow it.
Voting twice is illegal — as is encouraging others to do so.
Trump has spent months denouncing voting by mail as a scheme by Democrats to steal the election.
“So let them [mail] it in and let them go vote, and if their system’s as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote. If it isn’t tabulated, they’ll be able to vote,” Trump said when asked about the mail-in system in the swing state, adding, “So that’s the way it is. And that’s what they should do.”
Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, issued a statement Thursday reminding residents that voting twice is a Class I felony.
“Attempting to vote twice in an election or soliciting someone to do so also is a violation of North Carolina law,” said Bell. “There are numerous checks in place in North Carolina that prevent people from double voting. Electronic pollbooks with information about who has already voted are used at every early voting site. If a voter tries to check in who has already voted, they will be prevented from voting a regular ballot.”
Josh Stein, the state’s Democratic attorney general, criticized Trump Wednesday evening.
“Today, President Trump outrageously encouraged NCians to break the law in order to help him sow chaos in our election,” Stein said in a statement on Twitter. “Make sure you vote, but do NOT vote twice! I will do everything in my power to make sure the will of the people is upheld in November.”
After his initial statement, Trump told WECT-TV that “they’ll go out and they’ll vote, and they’re going to have to go and check their vote by going to the poll and voting that way, because if it tabulates, then they won’t be able to do that.”
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany was asked about the comments Thursday morning during a Fox News interview. She said Trump’s intent was not to encourage residents to vote twice but to check at the polling place to see if their mail-in vote had been tabulated.
“The president is not suggesting anyone do anything unlawful. What he said very clearly there was, make sure your vote is tabulated. and if it’s not, then vote,” said McEnany.
Trump spent much of the summer railing against voting by mail, claiming without evidence that the system — already used by a number of states in the country — would be ripe with fraud. On Thursday, he encouraged supporters to vote by mail while attempting to clarify his comments in North Carolina.
“Based on the massive number of Unsolicited & Solicited Ballots that will be sent to potential Voters for the upcoming 2020 Election, & in order for you to MAKE SURE YOUR VOTE COUNTS & IS COUNTED, SIGN & MAIL IN your Ballot as EARLY as possible,” he tweeted. “On Election Day, or Early Voting, go to your Polling Place to see whether or not your Mail In Vote has been Tabulated (Counted). If it has you will not be able to Vote & the Mail In System worked properly. If it has not been Counted, VOTE (which is a citizen’s right to do). If your Mail In Ballot arrives after you Vote, which it should not, that Ballot will not be used or counted in that your vote has already been cast & tabulated. YOU ARE NOW ASSURED THAT YOUR PRECIOUS VOTE HAS BEEN COUNTED, it hasn’t been ‘lost, thrown out, or in any way destroyed’.”
North Carolina did have a high-profile case of voter fraud with a 2018 House election that ended up with the initial results being thrown out and the election being done over. The fraud in that instance, however, was perpetrated by an operative working for the Republican candidate.
In March, Trump criticized initial Democratic attempts to fund mail-in voting in the first round of pandemic relief legislation, but also admitted what may be his real objection: that increased ballot access would be bad for Republicans. He told Fox News that such expansion would lead to “levels of voting, that if you ever agreed to it you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
“You know, there’s nothing wrong with getting out and voting, you get out and vote,” Trump said. “They voted during World War I and World War II, and they should have voter ID, because the Democrats scammed the system.
“But two of the items are the post office and the $3.5 billion for mail-in voting,” he added. “Now, if we don’t make a deal, that means they don’t get the money. That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting, they just can’t have it.”
In August, he again explained he was opposed to additional funding for the U.S. Postal Service that would be used to process mail ballots.
“They want $3.5 billion for something that will turn out to be fraudulent, that’s election money, basically,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo. “They want $25 billion, billion, for the post office. Now they need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots. Now, in the meantime, they aren’t getting there. By the way, those are just two items. But if they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting.”
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