Donald and Melania Trump Again Voted by Mail in Florida Despite His Repeated Claims of Fraud

Donald Trump voted by mail again this week, after huffing and puffing all last year about false claims that the method leads to rampant voter fraud.

Palm Beach County, Florida, voting records reviewed by PEOPLE show that the former president, 74, requested a ballot be mailed to his Mar-a-Lago Club last Friday.

Trump's mail-in vote was received by local election officials and counted on Tuesday, the day of the Florida town's election.

A spokesman did not respond to PEOPLE's request for comment about why the former president, who repeatedly railed against mail-in voting in public, continues to use the method privately.

Trump spent months before and after he lost the 2020 presidential election claiming it was stolen from him, in large part because of widespread fraud via ballots by mail. His claims were roundly rejected by the courts and election officials of both parties (though Republican lawmakers have since moved to restrict voting by mail in the future).

No evidence of widespread fraud has been uncovered and national security officials at the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency declared the 2020 election was "the most secure in American history."

(Trump fired Chris Krebs, the head of the security agency, days after that statement was made.)

The Palm Beach Post reported this week that this is the third time Trump has used mail-in voting since he moved his permanent residence from New York City to Mar-a-Lago in October 2019. The former president voted by mail during last March's presidential primary and last August's primaries.

Trump had an associate pick up his mail-in ballot those previous two times, according to the Post, and that it's likely the same thing happened this week, as Trump was traveling to N.Y.C.

Voter records show former First Lady Melania Trump also cast her vote by mail this week, requesting her ballot on Monday. It was counted on Tuesday, according to the Palm Beach County's website. (A spokesperson for her also did not respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.)

Both the former president and Mrs. Trump, 50, voted in person during the 2020 general election. After casting their ballots early and in person last October, Trump said it was "much more secure than when you send in a ballot."

"There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent," he tweeted last May.

When previously asked why he had voted by mail twice before, Trump had told reporters that "Florida's different from other states" and appeared to claim that voting by mail was safe to do in states with Republican governors but not Democratic-led states.

Another time he was asked about voting by mail despite criticizing it, Trump said: "Because I'm allowed to."

Source: Read Full Article