President Donald Trump cited the pro-Trump One America News Network (OANN), which has been known to publish conspiracy theories, while claiming that the United States Postal Service (USPS) “is responsible for tampering with hundreds of thousands of ballots.”
“This long time Democrat stronghold got rid of massive numbers, especially in swing states, during and before delivery of the ballots. Well documented evidence!” the president asserted.
Whistleblowers reveal that the USPS is responsible for tampering with hundreds of thousands of ballots. @OANN This long time Democrat stronghold got rid of massive numbers, especially in swing states, during and before delivery of the ballots. Well documented evidence!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2020
The president has spent the last few weeks pursuing flimsy legal options in a bid to overturn the results of the November 3 general election, with no success. He has often insisted that ballots were tampered with and has disparaged mail-in voting, which heavily favored his opponent, President-elect Joe Biden.
Trump has often made these claims to distract from bigger stories. For example, the day after The New York Times published extensive and comprehensive reporting about his tax avoidance, the president insisted that “The Ballots being returned to States cannot be accurately counted.”
The Ballots being returned to States cannot be accurately counted. Many things are already going very wrong!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 28, 2020
What the president doesn’t acknowledge is that he spent much of this year’s election cycle discouraging his supporters from voting by mail amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The president has claimed that mail-in voting is rife with fraud, though there is no evidence to support that assertion.
In fact, a study from Stanford University’s Democracy and Polarization Lab published in April found that contrary to the widely-held belief among the GOP that vote-by-mail gives Democrats an advantage over Republicans, vote-by-mail options do not benefit one party more than another.
“By comparing counties that adopt a vote-by-mail program to counties within the same state that do not adopt the program, we are able to compare the election outcomes and turnout behavior of voters who have different vote-by-mail accessibility but who have the same set of candidates on the ballot for statewide races,” researchers wrote.
