Trump Urges Voters To Check Mail-In-Ballots Are Counted At Polls: “MAKE SURE YOUR VOTE COUNTS & IS COUNTED”

Posted By: Lindsey Michelle September 3, 2020

President Donald Trump suggested that people in North Carolina should vote twice in the November election, once by mail and once in person, escalating his attempts to cast confusion and doubt on the validity of the results, NBC News claimed.

To put controversy to bed over remarks he made in North Carolina ahead of the November election, the Commander in Chief took to Twitter Thursday morning to clarify.

“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,” President Trump tweeted.

“On Election Day, or Early Voting, go to your Polling Place to see whether or not your Mail In Vote has been Tabulated (Counted),” the president continued. “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).”

He concluded: “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’. GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!”

The tweets came after Trump on Wednesday spoke in an on-camera interview about his concerns over potential election fraud amid an increase in mail-in voting sparked by the coronavirus pandemic. Critics accused the president of telling Americans to vote twice ‒ once by mail, and a second time by casting their votes at the polls ‒ in order to test the veracity of the system, Fox News reported. Continued Below

Asked about the security of mail-in votes, President Trump said in an interview with WECT-TV in Wilmington, North Carolina, “Let them send it in and let them go vote. And if their system is as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote. If it isn’t tabulated they’ll be able to vote. So that’s the way it is, and that’s what they should do.”

“I don’t like the idea of these unsolicited votes. I never did. It leads to a lot of problems. They’ve got 11 problems already on very small contests. I’m not happy about it. At the same time, we’re in court with a lot of it. We’re going to see if it can be stopped,” the president told WECT’s Jon Evans.

“But send your ballots, send them in strong, whether it’s solicited or unsolicited. The absentees are fine. But go to vote and if they haven’t counted it, you can vote. That’s the way I view it,” he added. Video Below

“You can’t let them take your vote away. These people are playing dirty politics. So if you have an absentee ballot, or as I call it, a solicited ballot, you send it in. But I would check it in any event. Go and follow it and go vote,” the president also told reporters.

Voting twice in the same election is against the law.

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On Wednesday, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein tweeted in response the president’s remarks, writing, “Today, President Trump outrageously encouraged NCians to break the law in order to help him sow chaos in our election. 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.”

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White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Thursday, said that the president was not encouraging people to vote twice:

(Related: President Trump: “IF YOU CAN PROTEST IN PERSON, YOU CAN VOTE IN PERSON!”)