WASHINGTON (AP) — It was a week of attacks by President Donald Trump and his allies on mail-in voting for the November election, and truth took a beating at every turn.
Fearing a pandemic-induced surge in such voting will work against him, Trump persisted in arguing fraud is rampant for mail-in ballots yet quite fine and safe for absentee votes, which are also mailed. There is no functional difference between the two, and both have extensive verification systems.
He and his campaign also tried to cast a new Nevada law as allowing ballots to be “showered” across the state to any living person, regardless of age or citizenship, who would have the ability to vote after Nov. 3 without their identities ever verified. Each of those claims is off the mark.
Meanwhile, on the coronavirus, Trump painted a far rosier picture than his own health experts on when a vaccine could become available. He asserted it could be ready by Election Day.
He also falsely claimed once more children are basically immune from the disease, prompting rebukes from both Facebook and Twitter for the misinformation.
A look at the rhetoric and the reality:
VOTING FRAUD
TRUMP: “You look at some of the corruption having to do with universal mail-in voting. Absentee voting is OK.” — Axios interview released Monday.
VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: “Absentee balloting is perfectly acceptable. You have to apply for an absentee ballot, signatures are checked, it’s confirmed, it is a long tradition. … But this universal mail-in voting where you’re going to see literally ballots showered all across the state — it is ripe for fraud.” — Fox News interview Monday.
THE FACTS: Trump and his vice president are making a false distinction. Mail-in ballots are cast in the same way as absentee mail ballots, with the same level of scrutiny such as signature verification in many states.
In more than 30 states and the District of Columbia, voters have a right to “no excuse” absentee voting. That means they can use mail-in ballots for any reason, regardless if a person is out of town or working. In Florida, the Legislature in 2016 voted to change the wording of such balloting from “absentee” to “vote-by-mail” to make clear a voter can cast such ballots if they wish.
More broadly, voter fraud has proved exceedingly rare. The Brennan Center for Justice in 2017 ranked the risk of ballot fraud at 0.00004-0.0009 percent, based on studies of past elections.
Five states relied on mail-in ballots even before the coronavirus pandemic raised concerns about voting in person.
“Trump is simply wrong about mail-in balloting raising a ‘tremendous’ potential for fraud,” Richard L. Hasen, an elections expert at the University of California, Irvine, School of Law, wrote recently. “While certain pockets of the country have seen their share of absentee-ballot scandals, problems are extremely rare in the five states that rely primarily on vote-by-mail, including the heavily Republican state of Utah.”
In an apparent turnabout, Trump later in the week urged voters in Florida to vote by mail despite his rhetoric against the practice, arguing in a tweet its system is “safe and secure, tried and true.” Florida is a must-win state for Trump, where Democratic requests to vote by mail have been surging higher.
STEPHEN MILLER, White House senior adviser: “Here’s a shocking thing for your audience to consider. Nobody who mails in a ballot has their identity confirmed. Nobody checks to see if they’re even a U.S. citizen. Think about that. Any — any foreign national, talk about foreign election interference, can mail in a ballot and nobody even verifies if they’re a citizen of the United States of America.” — Fox News interview Monday.
THE FACTS: He’s incorrect to assert measures aren’t in place to confirm a voter’s identity or prevent fraud with mail ballots.
Ballots typically require voters to provide identifying information such as a birth date or Social Security or driver’s license number. In most states, voters also sign the back of the envelope, which is then verified with the signature on their voter registrations.
Many jurisdictions use a bar code on the envelope, which is used to help states identify any duplicate ballots and also let voters know if their ballot was received.
Miller ignores separate built-in safeguards for mail-in ballots. The ballots, for instance, are generally sent to registered voters, who have to provide identifying information at the time of registration, such as an address, birth date and proof of citizenship.
In Miller’s hypothetical scenario of a foreign national improperly casting a vote, that ballot would be flagged and rejected for not having a signature on file or for failing to match one that is. Based on the envelope’s bar code, state voting officials also could identify and eliminate any duplicate ballots, whether they were submitted mistakenly or fraudulently.
NOVEMBER ELECTION
TRUMP: With more mail-in voting, “it’s going to be months or years” until a presidential winner is known. — Fox News interview Wednesday.
THE FACTS: Not according to federal law. A presidential outcome will be known one way or another by mid-December.
It’s true state election officials in some states have cautioned it may take more time to count an expected surge of ballots people send by mail because they don’t feel safe showing up to the polls. In an election as close as the one in 2016, a delayed tally in some states could keep the outcome from being quickly known.
But for a presidential election, the Constitution gives Congress the power to set the day when each state’s electors, those chosen in November, must cast their electoral votes. Congress set that day for “the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December,” or Dec. 14 this year.
Federal law also sets a presidential election for the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, which is Nov. 3 this election cycle. That means each state will have five weeks to report its final election tally, whether its vote count is fully finished or not.
Delayed results are common in a few states where elections are already conducted largely by mail. But a presidential election hasn’t been left in limbo since 2000, when ballot irregularities in Florida led to chaos and court fights. Ultimately that dispute was settled by the U.S. Supreme Court, which effectively ended Florida’s recount five weeks later Dec. 12, 2000, saying time had run out before electors were set to meet.
TRUMP, on issuing an executive order to address increases in mail-in voting, which he says will lead to more fraud: “I have the right to do it.” — news briefing Monday.
THE FACTS: Not according to the Constitution, which expressly gives states the right to run their elections, with oversight from Congress.
There is no precedent or apparent authority for Trump to try to curtail the use of mail-in ballots by executive order. Any such order from the president would certainly face constitutional challenges in court from voting rights groups.
Trump has previously floated a delay to the Nov. 3 election. The date of the presidential election — the Tuesday after the first Monday in November in every fourth year — is enshrined in federal law and would require an act of Congress to change. Democrats, who control the House, will not support Trump on this. It appears Republicans won’t, either.
CORONAVIRUS
TRUMP, asked if a vaccine for COVID-19 could become available before the election: “I think in some cases, yes possible before, but right around that time. … I’m rushing it. I am. I’m pushing everybody.” — interview Thursday on the Geraldo Rivera radio program.
THE FACTS: He’s offering a more ambitious timeline than his health experts and omitting key facts.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious diseases expert, has said he is “cautiously optimistic” a coronavirus vaccine will be ready by early next year. Even then, Fauci made clear the vaccine would not be widely available right away.
“Ultimately, within a reasonable period of time, the plans now allow for any American who needs a vaccine to get it within the year 2021,” Fauci told Congress last week.
Under White House orders, federal health agencies and the Defense Department are carrying out a plan to deliver 300 million vaccine doses on a compressed timeline. That will happen only after the Food and Drug Administration determines one or more vaccines are safe and effective. Several candidates are being tested.
The push for a speedy vaccine has drawn concern from some scientists the White House will pressure U.S. regulators to approve a vaccine before it’s ready.
In an op-ed this past week, FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn said his agency will not be influenced by any political pressure and will make decisions “based solely on good science and data.”
TRUMP: “Children are almost — and I would almost say definitely — but almost immune from this disease, so few. …They don’t have a problem, they just don’t have a problem. … And I’ve have watched some doctors say they’re totally immune.” — Fox news interview Wednesday.
THE FACTS: They aren’t immune. Although it’s true children are less likely than adults to develop COVID-19, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has nevertheless counted more than 250,000 infections by the virus in Americans younger than 18, or roughly 7 percent of all cases.
The number of children who have been infected but not confirmed is almost certainly far higher than that, experts say, because those with mild or no symptoms are less likely to get tested.
Trump overlooks severe COVID-19 illnesses and some deaths of children in the U.S., even though children, in general, tend to get less sick from it than adults do. He also glosses over the fact that children can spread disease without showing symptoms themselves.
The CDC in April studied the pandemic’s effect on different ages in the U.S. and reviewed preliminary research in China, where the coronavirus started. It said social distancing is important for children, too, for their own safety and that of others.
“Whereas most COVID-19 cases in children are not severe, serious COVID-19 illness resulting in hospitalization still occurs in this age group,” the CDC study says.
The CDC in May also warned doctors to be on the lookout for a rare but life-threatening inflammatory reaction in some children who’ve had the coronavirus. The condition had been reported in more than 100 children in New York, and in some children in several other states and in Europe, with some deaths.
Trump’s claim prompted Facebook to delete his post with a link to the Fox News video because of the misinformation. Twitter temporarily blocked the Trump campaign from tweeting from its account, until it removed a post with the same video.
TRUMP: “When you do a lot of testing, you have more cases.” — Fox News interview Wednesday.
THE FACTS: It’s not true infections are high only because the U.S. diagnostic testing has increased. Trump’s public health officials have repeatedly shot down this line of thinking. Infections are rising because people are infecting each other more than they were when most everyone was hunkered down.
Increased testing does contribute to the higher numbers, but there’s more to it. Testing in fact has uncovered a worrisome trend: The percentage of tests coming back positive for the virus is on the rise across nearly the entire country.
That’s a clear demonstration sickness is spreading and the U.S. testing system is falling short.