4 September 2020 09:39 am
U.S. President Donald Trump has urged residents of North Carolina to vote twice in the Nov. 3 election, once by mail and once in person, openly urging an act of voter fraud even as he has decried mail-in ballots.
“Let them send it in and let them go vote,” Trump said in an interview on Wednesday with WECT-TV in Wilmington, North Carolina. “And if the system is as good as they say it is then obviously they won’t be able to vote” in person.
Voting more than once in an election is illegal and in some states, including North Carolina, it is a felony not only to vote more than once but also to induce another to do so. The North Carolina State Board of Elections had no immediate comment on Trump’s remarks.
Trump has repeatedly asserted, without evidence, that mail-in voting - expanded by some states because of the coronavirus pandemic - would increase fraud and disrupt the November election, although experts say voter fraud of any kind is extremely rare in the United States.
Trump, a Republican, campaigned on Wednesday in North Carolina, known as a battleground state because its population can swing either to Republicans or Democrats and play a decisive role in presidential elections.
Ballots are due to be mailed in North Carolina on Friday.
-WILMINGTON
REUTERS Sept 3