Donald Trump’s Suggestion to Delay Election Provokes Strong Response

By Yousuf Ali

On Thursday, July 30th, President Donald Trump tweeted a complaint about the fact that mail-in ballots have become standard policy in some states. In the tweet, he said that this was susceptible to fraud in contrast to “absentee ballots” which are also mailed out. At the end of the tweet, he questioned whether or not the election should be delayed because of this.

This has caused a serious reaction from his opponents saying that he is trying to undermine the democratic institutions of the United States and cling to power. As it happens, he does not have the power to delay the election but the suggestion has still caused a great deal of outrage towards him because of just how unprecedented the scenario would be. 

To begin, many have objected to the very premise of his tweet that mail-in voting was somehow disproportionately susceptible to fraud. Furthermore, according to the BBC, “   Under the US constitution, Trump does not have the authority to postpone the election himself. Any delay would have to be approved by Congress. The president does not have direct power over the two houses of Congress.” Despite the fact that mail-in voting has led to longer times in counting the votes, there is little evidence of any fraud thus far.

According to Anthony Zurcher, “His tweet could also be an attempt to divert attention away from the truly dismal second-quarter economic numbers just released. He’s been relying on a financial turnaround to breathe life into his re-election campaign, and instead, the outlook appears exceedingly gloomy.”

Furthermore, many in his own party including Republican leaders in both the Senate and House have rejected the idea of delaying the election. The Democratic response has been at least as strong with Tom Udall saying that there was “no way” the election would be delayed. Overall, most commentators from both parties have rejected Trump’s suggestion that the election is delayed.