When President Donald Trump tweets, you don’t know what to expect. While in most of the cases it’s about something that he is currently watching on TV, you still don’t know if he will write a meaningless comment about somebody that he saw on a show, or it will be something that needs to be addressed by politicians and legal experts.
We don’t know where he get the idea for his newest explosive tweet, but it’s certainly making waves.
With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020
As we usually do, let’s analyze the tweet, word by word.
With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good)…
So, what’s the difference between Mail-In Voting (which, according to Trump is bad) and Absentee Voting (which, according to Trump is good)?
Well, the thing is – they are quite the same. You request to get a ballot sent to you, after you have it you vote, and then you send the ballot. The process is the same, the protections are there, and they are the same.
It’s the same thing!
Okay, so let’s go to the next part of the tweet.
…2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA…
What is he basing this on?
Or a better question… what does he mean by this? Does he talks about Mail-In Voting? Because there are lot of protections and basically there are no evidence to suggest that there is widespread fraud associated to this way of voting.
And when you make accusation like this one, you need to provide evidence to support it. Trump has suggested this many times before but he hasn’t provided any proof.
Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???
And we come to the most important part of the tweet.
Can the president of the United States delay the election? Can the election be postponed at all?
First, let’s talk about the current election day – Tuesday, November 3, 2020.
This day is not set by Trump or by anybody currently in Congress… but by a bill which was passed in 1845 specifying a uniform election day for all states, on “the Tuesday next after the first Monday in the month of November”.
So, in short, only Congress can change the current election day. How come?
This quote is from the US Constitution:
The Congress may determine the Time of chusing [sic] the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.
In response to the Trump’s tweet, even Republicans in Congress said that the Election day won’t be changed.
And about the idea that the elections can be postponed indefinitely until there is some improvement with the coronavirus pandemic, even if Congress vote on that, it won’t mean that Trump will continue to be president after January 20, 2021.
This is a quote from the Twentieth Amendment to the US Constitution:
The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.
So, however we look at the tweet, we will see that there is no basis in Trump’s claims or expectations and we can safely assume that the elections will be on November 3, 2020.
This comes at a time when the economy is suffering from the impact of Covid-19 and all of the polls suggest that Joe Biden will win the election. Maybe those are the reasons for the tweet!?
But wait. Only hours after this tweet and the first respones Trump tweeted this:
We are going to WIN the 2020 Election, BIG! #MAGA
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020
Should we try to analyze this tweet too?
Please, not again…
Maybe you can try in the comments HERE.