Trump Did Not Say to Vote Twice
The Claim
U.S. President Donald Trump told people they should vote twice in the 2020 presidential election.
News posted on
Emerging story
On September 3rd, 2020, Donald Trump sent out the following message via three consecutive Twitter messages:
“Based on the massive number of Unsolicited & Solicited Ballots that will be sent to potential Voters for the upcoming 2020 Election, & in order for you to MAKE SURE YOUR VOTE COUNTS & IS COUNTED, SIGN & MAIL IN your Ballot as EARLY as possible. On Election Day, or Early Voting, go to your Polling Place to see whether or not your Mail In Vote has been Tabulated (Counted). If it has, you will not be able to Vote, & the Mail In System worked properly. If it has not been Counted, VOTE (which is a citizen’s right to do). If your Mail In Ballot arrives after you Vote, which it should not, that Ballot will not be used or counted in that your vote has already been cast & tabulated. YOU ARE NOW ASSURED THAT YOUR PRECIOUS VOTE HAS BEEN COUNTED, it hasn’t been “lost, thrown out, or in any way destroyed.”
These messages immediately went viral and were picked up on both the mainstream and social media, many of whom claimed that the president was advocating for voters to vote twice, which is voter fraud and a felony.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar’s investigation into this claim reveals it to be false. If you read the above message, it should be clear that the message does not involve voting twice at any point, and actually states the opposite. Rather, what Trump seems to be advocating for is simply double-checking to make sure your ballot has been counted. If the voting system is working properly, your mail in ballot will be counted, and you will not be allowed to vote a second time. If the voting system is mildly broken, your mail in ballot will not be counted but you can still cast your vote, with the mail in ballot discarded at that point. Only if the voting system is catastrophically broken would an individual actually be allowed to vote twice, and this would be accidental on the part of the voter and entirely a fault of the system. If our voting system were indeed that broken, I think it would be good to know about it. People would want to know: how long has it been like this?
