Donald Trump tells supporters to try to vote twice, sparking uproar
- US president urged residents of battleground state North Carolina to cast ballots by mail and in person for coming election
- Democratic National Committee accuses Trump of encouraging voter fraud, saying he is undermining confidence in fairness of polls
US President Donald Trump has urged residents in the critical political battleground of North Carolina to try to vote twice in the November 3 election, once by mail and once in person, causing a furor for appearing to urge a potential act of voter fraud.
“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.
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.
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. Ballots are due to be mailed in North Carolina on Friday.
The state’s Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat, wrote on Twitter that Trump, a Republican, had “outrageously encouraged” North Carolinians “to break the law in order to help him sow chaos in our election”.