President Donald Trump plans to take several steps on Election Day to prevent allegedvoter fraud , he toldSean Hannity onFox News Thursday night.- "We're going to have sheriffs, and we're going to have law enforcement. And we're going to have hopefully US attorneys, and we're going to have everybody and attorney generals," Trump said.
- The president's re-election campaign has filed lawsuits against New Jersey and Nevada over their decisions to send
mail-in ballots to every registered voter ahead of November 3 because "anybody can sign" them, he said without evidence. - The National Vote at Home Institute estimates that over 250 million people have used vote-by-mail since 2000. Still, the Voting Rights Project found only 400 cases of registration fraud and 491 cases of absentee ballot fraud between 2000 and 2012.
President Donald Trump said Thursday that he plans to dispatch law enforcement officers and attorneys to polling places on November 3 to safeguard against alleges voter fraud.
For
"Are you going to have poll watchers? Are you going to have an ability to monitor, to avoid fraud, and cross-check whether or not these are registered voters?" Hannity said.
"We're going to have everything," Trump promised in response.
"We're going to have sheriffs, and we're going to have law enforcement. And we're going to have hopefully U.S. attorneys, and we're going to have everybody and attorney generals," he added. "But it's very hard."
Voter fraud is extremely rare. The Brennan Center for Justice estimated that one in four Americans cast a mail-in ballot during the last two general elections and cited the National Vote at Home Institute's findings that over 250 million votes have been cast in this way since 2000.
But the Voting Rights Project found only 491 cases of absentee ballot fraud between 2000 and 2012 and about 400 cases of registration fraud. These numbers are "infinitesimal," the project's website says. Oregon, for example, has seen only 0.00001% of fraud in all of its mail-in ballots cast in the past 20 years, the Brennan Center said.
States who rely on vote-by-mail prevent fraud by verifying people's identities in several ways, tracking unique bar codes on ballot envelopes, and using secure drop-off locations.
—Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) August 21, 2020
Trump's re-election campaign has sued Nevada and New Jersey over their plans to expand universal mail-in voting ahead of the general election. During Thursday's interview, the president called out both states and doubled down on his assertion that "anybody can sign" mail-in ballots.
"Nobody's ever heard of anything like this," Trump said.
"They may send them to all Democrat areas, not to Republican areas as an example," he said without evidence, referring to mail-in ballots. "Could be the other way too, but I doubt it. So it's a very serious problem."
Americans are expected to break vote-by-mail records, choosing to mail in their ballots as a safety precaution amid the coronavirus pandemic.
On Wednesday, White House press secretary
Despite touting Trump's desire for "a fair election," McEnany said, "The president has always said he'll see what happens and make a determination in the aftermath."
Earlier this week, Trump told supporters in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, that "the only way we're going to lose this election is if this election is rigged," per CNN.
While the president continues to cast doubt on whether mail-in voting will yield accurate results, The New York Times reported that nine states and Washington, DC, will send every registered voter a ballot prior to the election. Thirty-four states will also allow voters to say that they're casting absentee ballots because of the coronavirus or not specify a reason at all.