President Trump said Tuesday a do-over will be needed if universal mail-in voting is allowed in November’s contest between himself and likely Democratic nominee Joseph R. Biden.
“You can’t take millions of ballots, send them haphazardly all over the country or all over a state and expect it to come out properly,” Mr. Trump said at the White House.
“It’ll end up being a rigged election or they will never come out with an outcome. They’ll have to do it again, and nobody wants that,” Mr. Trump added. “And I don’t want that.”
Mr. Trump made the remarks at an event where he commemorated 100 years since the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified guaranteeing American women the right to vote.
Less than three months until Election Day, they followed a series of similar remarks Mr. Trump made recently in which he has preemptively cast doubt on the race’s eventual outcome.
Amid efforts led by Democrats to expand mail-in voting because of the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic, Mr. Trump has been among the loudest Republicans to attack their push.
Mr. Trump said Saturday that Americans “may never know” the results of the race if universal mail-in voting is allowed, and said Monday it will be “rigged” if Mr. Biden wins.
“The only way we’re going to lose this election is if this election is rigged,” Mr. Trump told supporters while campaigning in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey was among Democrats quick to condemn Mr. Trump early Tuesday over the remarks he made the previous day attacking the integrity of the electoral process.
“This man is dangerous. And he is, in my opinion, someone who has deep authoritarian tendencies that have to be checked by Congress on both sides of the aisle and have to be resoundingly condemned when he says something as dangerous as ‘either I win this election, or it is not legitimate,’” Mr. Booker said on Sirius XM’s “The Joe Madison Show.”
Proponents of expanded mail-in voting argue it is necessary in light of the coronavirus pandemic making it dangerous to hold November’s election under normal conditions.
Mr. Trump has argued without evidence that universal mail-in voting will lead to rampant voter fraud. Election experts have stated otherwise, however.
“There’s simply no basis for the conspiracy theory that voting by mail causes fraud,” Federal Election Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub, a Democrat, said in May. “None.”
