Trump suggests that North Carolina voters should test mail-in system by trying to vote twice

President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested that voters in North Carolina should test their state's election system by voting once by mail, then trying to vote a second time in person.

"Let them send it in and let them go vote, and if the system is as good as they say it is, then obviously they won't be able to vote," Trump told local station WECT after arriving in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Voting twice in the same election is illegal, and doing so deliberately is an example of the very kind of voter fraud that Trump has spent months railing against. In North Carolina, it is a felony "with intent to commit a fraud to register or vote at more than one precinct or more than one time, or to induce another to do so, in the same primary or election, or to vote illegally at any primary or election."

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The president has warned against the expansion of voting by mail with claims it is likely to lead to widespread voter fraud, even though evidence from elections has shown that is not the case.

One analysis from the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice found only 491 cases of absentee voter fraud out of billions of votes cast across all U.S. elections from 2000 to 2012.

Trump said Wednesday that if the voting system is working properly, someone who sends in a ballot by mail and then tries to vote in person at a later time would not be allowed to do so because their vote would already be counted.

"They'll go out and they'll vote, and they'll have to go 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," he said when asked about his confidence in North Carolina's absentee system. "That's the way it is, and that's what they should do.

"I'm not happy about it," Trump said of sending out ballots to all registered voters. But North Carolina's system does not automatically send out ballots; voters have to request them, though any voter is eligible to do so.

Fewer than one in five states is sending out ballots to all registered voters.

"I don't like the idea of these unsolicited votes. I never did. It leads to a lot of problems," Trump said.

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Asked about Trump's comments in an interview with CNN, Attorney General Bill Barr said he didn't know what the law on double voting was in each state.

"It seems to me what he's saying is, he's trying to make the point that the ability to monitor this system is not good, and if it was so good, if you tried to vote a second time, you would be caught," Barr said.

"That would be illegal if they did that," anchor Wolf Blitzer said. "If somebody mailed in a ballot and then actually showed up to vote in person, that would be illegal."

"I don't know what the law in the particular state says," Barr said, also noting that it may be the case in some places a voter can change their vote up to a certain point.

Barr also appeared to stoke Trump's claims that mail-in voting could be vulnerable to fraud. "This is playing with fire," Barr said, referring to widespread mail-in ballots in the wake of the pandemic.

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Joe Biden campaign spokesperson Andrew Bates tweeted that Trump was "publicly encouraging lawbreaking" with his comments.

Tim Murtaugh, spokesperson for the Trump campaign, claimed the president was encouraging voters to cast their absentee ballots by mail early, and then go in person to "verify" that the vote had been counted.

"President Trump encourages supporters to vote absentee-by-mail early, and then show up in person at the polls or the local registrar to verify that their vote has already been counted," Murtaugh told NBC News. "It’s amazing that the media can go from insisting that voter fraud doesn’t exist to screaming about it when President Trump points out the giant holes in the Democrats’ voting schemes.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump suggests North Carolina residents try to vote twice as a test