Speaking from the White House on Tuesday, March 31, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick commented on how the President’s new, sweeping executive order targeting mail-in voting will work, and how the United States Postal Service will be integral to its enforcement.
For reference, President Trump signed a major executive order on Tuesday that both targets mail-in voting and addresses the matter of voter eligibility. He and his affiliates have framed the matter as being about restoring confidence in American elections by making sure that only those who should vote are voting, and that they’re doing so legally.
The executive order requires that the relevant federal agencies, primarily DHS, work with all the states in America to use the data that the federal government has on citizenship and identity so that lists of eligible voters can be compiled and used in the upcoming and future elections. Further, it establishes new tracking and verification measures for mail-in voting, while limiting the practice somewhat.
President Trump, for his part, told the press when speaking from the Oval Office about the Executive Order, that it is focused on “voter integrity and Mail-In ballots” and on “stopping the massive cheating that’s gone on.” He added, “We’re going to be signing an executive order. It’s, I believe it’s foolproof… I think it’s very obvious what’s said.”
The president further insisted that the executive order, which, in addition to establishing the safeguards and eligibility measures, directs the attorney general to prioritize cracking down on fraud, is necessary because “The cheating on mail-in voting is legendary.” Continuing, he added, “It’s horrible what’s going on.”
Then, commenting on the matter of voter ID and proof of citizenship, the president said, “We’d like to have voter ID, we’d like to have proof of citizenship… we’re working on that.” He added, “The only people that don’t want to do voter ID are people that cheat.” He also said, getting in a shot at the judiciary, “I don’t know how it can be challenged. You may find a rogue judge… but that’s the only way that could be changed.”
Lutnick provided more details on how the mail-in ballot provisions will work. He began, “So the fundamentals of our democracy are built on voter integrity, right? We all need it. You’ve said it time and time again. It’s a total agreement amongst everybody. So here’s the idea, the states, right, run these elections.”
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He continued, “They will, if they want to use the US Mail, the US Postal Service, they’re going to get a code, a bar code, from the US Postal Service, and they’re going to put that on the envelope, and we will have one envelope per vote, none of this time where we have no idea, there’s no observers to mail, there’s no envelopes, there’s no certainty that’s all going to go away.”
He further added, “And what the President is doing today is he’s going to make sure that mail in ballots are safe, secure and accurate, and will have a clear distinction. If you voted by mail, you will have it on the envelope, obviously not on the ballot, but on the envelope. So we will know a million mail in ballots. There’ll be a million envelopes, and you’ll be able to know exactly correctly that citizens voted.”
Watch him here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video