Donald Trump Just Voted By Mail And It's Causing A Stir
Ahead of and after the 2020 elections in November, former President Donald Trump repeatedly called into question the safety of mail-in ballots, an argument he used to spread allegations of voter fraud after losing the election to Democrat Joe Biden.
Even months before his political defeat, Trump was criticizing the practice of voting by mail, whose popularity increased amid the pandemic as citizens looked for ways to exercise their civic duty while protecting themselves and others (via NBC News). "If foreign countries want to, this is an easy system to break into because they'll do counterfeit ballots ... They'll do counterfeit ballots by the millions," Trump said in September, according to Forbes.
In April, he took to his Twitter account, which has since been suspended, to refer to the method of voting as "ballot harvesting" (via NPR). "GET RID OF BALLOT HARVESTING, IT IS RAMPANT WITH FRAUD," he had tweeted. Trump had the support of his fellow Republicans in the matter as well. In September 2020, Attorney General William Barr echoed the then-president's words in a series of remarks in which he claimed that mail-in votes lead to voter fraud (via Reuters).
In spite of his harsh criticism, though, Trump himself has voted by mail on several occasions. And he did so recently. Keep scrolling to read more about the controversy.
Donald Trump requested a mail-in vote for municipal election in Florida
Donald Trump requested a ballot to vote by mail in the municipal elections held on March 9, per The Washington Post.
The Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections records show that the former president requested that the ballot be sent to his residence at Mar-a-Lago just days before the elections on March 5, a week past the Feb. 27 deadline, the Post detailed. The county received his ballot the day before the election, which was dropped off in person, according to USA Today. Meanwhile, Forbes attempted to reach Trump for comment, but reported that his office had not immediately responded.
This isn't the first time Trump has voted by mail. In fact, he only voted in person once since he moved to Palm Beach from New York City in 2019 and transferred his voter registration, as per Forbes' report. The outlet explains that Trump cast a vote via mail in two other instances, including during the presidential primary in March and in the August primary.