Trump Says Votes Should Be Counted By Election Day To Avoid ‘Bad Things’
President Donald Trump reiterated his call for the election results to be out also on Election Day when he made his campaign stop in Rome, Georgia on Sunday.
The Republican president seeking reelection said extensions on the time frame for receiving and counting ballots could open opportunities for fraud as he hit the recent Supreme Court ruling allowing the practice in Pennsylvania and North Carolina for this election cycle.
“You know what would have been really nice? If our Supreme Court could have ruled that everything has to be counted by the evening of our Election Day, instead of waiting around six days, eight days, nine days, giving them more time,” President Trump told his supporters in Georgia.
“If they want more time, let them put their ballots in early. They don’t have to wait until the end.”
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The President noted that Republican lawmakers were against the extensions as he reiterated that such a ruling could allow “bad things [to] happen in places like Pennsylvania and Nevada.”
Last month, the Trump campaign sued election officials in Pennsylvania after a theft occurred in a warehouse full of election equipment raising doubts on election security in the battleground state that the incumbent President narrowly-won against Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Vote-by-mail extensions
In September, President Trump’s re-election campaign also challenged a new vote-by-mail law in Nevada, questioning its constitutionality and arguing that the rule removes election safeguards since it allows voting even after Election Day.
“That’s a terrible ruling for our country. I don’t care. It’s a terrible ruling. It’s a sham,” the President said in his Georgia speech on Sunday night.
Many states would allow counting of mail-in ballots even after November 3 as long as ballots were postmarked on or before the election day. In North Carolina, however, ballots will still be received up to nine days after the election and in Pennsylvania, the Supreme Court ruling also allowed a three-day extension to the ballot counting.
Recently, Philadelphia mayor Jim Kenney, a Democrat, cautioned that it “will easily take several days” to count mail-in ballots after Election Day.
President Trump won over Clinton in Georgia 50.4% to 45.3% in the 2016 election. He also won in North Carolina 49.8% to 46.2%.
Data compiled by RealClearPolitics, however, put the Republican incumbent in a virtual dead heat with Democratic challenger, Joe Biden in Georgia for the 2020 election.
A record 3.9 million American voters in Georgia have reportedly cast their ballots ahead of the Tuesday election.
Meanwhile, reports said the President’s Georgia rally gathered over 177,000 virtual viewers, smashing online audience records.
