Photo: Justin Sullivan Getty Images via Agence France-Presse To explain the Republican presidential candidate's change of heart, analysts argue that the gap between Donald Trump and Democratic President Joe Biden looks so close that he cannot afford to lose the votes of Republicans tempted by the vote by mail.
France Media Agency in Washington
Published yesterday at 11:47 p.m.
- United States
Donald Trump has continued to criticize postal voting in the United States, responsible, according to him, for his defeat in 2020. But the candidate is abandoning this crusade, aware that it could cost him dearly in the polls in November.
“A big scam”, the origin of “massive fraud”: the tempestuous Republican has fueled numerous conspiracy theories for years around this voting method.
The septuagenarian has repeatedly insinuated, without evidence, that postal voting would have allowed the Democrats to carry out major ballot stuffing operations during the last presidential election – won by Joe Biden and the result of which he never recognized.
These allegations have been denied by the authorities and in the courts.
“All the tools”
Without returning to these past declarations, the candidate for the November presidential election, against all expectations, announced this week the launch of an initiative… to encourage mail-in voting.
“The Republicans must win and we will use all appropriate tools to beat the Democrats because they are destroying our country”, justified Donald Trump in a statement, pledging to “protect access to the vote.”
How to explain this turnaround ?
According to analysts: the gap between him and Democratic President Joe Biden looks so tight that he cannot afford to losing the votes of Republicans tempted by postal voting.
2020, the pandemic
About 90 percent of Americans cast a ballot in person in 1996. But in recent years, early voting — particularly by mail — has become more widespread.
In the United States, each state can adapt the way its population expresses their vote.
Some Americans vote on machines , others with paper ballots. Some vote on site, others remotely, weeks in advance, or on election day.
During the 2020 presidential election, organized in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, voters preferred postal voting to in-person voting on D-day. And if this practice was more favored by Democrats according to the Pew research institute , a significant number of Republicans -32%- also chose this method.
The recent change in tone from the Trump camp is therefore “probably due to the fact that they realized that discouraging these forms of voting could have cost them votes” during the previous election, Ray Brescia of the Albany Law School told AFP.
France as an example
To justify his strong opposition to postal voting, Donald Trump has often taken the example of France, which conducts its elections in person, without resorting to early voting.
“We are the laughing stock of the world when it comes to elections,” declared the Republican on social networks in 2022.
Despite his many criticisms, Donald Trump has yet he himself used postal voting in Florida during the primaries in 2020.
His back and forths on the issue are numerous.
“Our goal is a one-day election with paper ballots — very simple — and ID. But until then, the Republicans must win,” he reluctantly told supporters gathered in Wisconsin in April.
In May, the candidate encouraged his supporters to vote by mail, while calling the practice “largely corrupt.”
“Trump's willingness to finally agree to play the game as it is played is one of the most important issues on which he has changed his mind since he became president,” judge Brian Mudd, host conservative radio station in Palm Beach County, Trump's stronghold in Florida.
“And if he comes to power again, this notable change in philosophy will be a reason . »