US President Donald Trump has urged his supporters and other members participating in the upcoming November 3rd presidential elections to do their best to vote twice, once by mail and once in person, in order to test the election system, despite this being wildly illegal.
“Let them send it in and let them go vote,” the Republican Party candidate said in an interview on with WECT-TV in Wilmington, North Carolina. “And if the system is as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote in person.”
Going further at a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Trump repeated his call for voters to go the polls even if they have mailed in their ballot, and he suggested Democrats would try to steal the election by manipulating the mail-in vote. “You have to make sure your vote counts, because the only way they’re gonna beat us is by doing that kind of stuff,” he said.
While the President also maintained his stance on Twitter and Facebook – the posts have been flagged by the popular social media sites, the White House has come out to offer some form of clarity on the issue, stating that the president’s statement had been taken out of context as he “does not condone unlawful voting.”
Voting Twice is Illegal in North Carolina but Does Trump Care?
Meanwhile, North Carolina’s State Attorney General, Josh Stein, a Democrat, wrote on Twitter that the Republican president had “outrageously encouraged” North Carolinians “to break the law in order to help him sow chaos in our election.”
Stein wrote: “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.”
Trump has repeatedly asserted, without evidence, that mail-in voting –expanded by some states because of the coronavirus pandemic– would increase fraud and disrupt the November election, although experts say voter fraud of any kind is extremely rare in the United States.
As the elections draw close, opinion polls currently show Trump trailing behind his Democratic rival Joe Biden, who was vice president under President Barack Obama.
