Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Friday that Americans shouldn’t worry about whether mail-in ballots will get tallied in November’s presidential election.
The electorate has multiple choices, the Kentucky Republican stressed.
“I don’t think people ought to worry about their vote not counting,” he said. “And I would encourage people: They’ve got three options in Kentucky. You can vote early, you can vote on Election Day, or you can drop it in the mail.”
MAIL-IN VOTING BEGINS AS NORTH CAROLINA SENDS OUT BALLOTS; DEMS LEAD BIG IN ABSENTEE REQUESTS
“So I would encourage people not to worry about your vote not counting,” he added. “Choose which option is the best for you, but be sure and vote.”
Voting by mail has become a contentious political issue over the past couple of months.
President Trump has attacked mail-in voting as rife with fraud, while providing no evidence, and there are escalating concerns about the ability of the U.S. Postal Service to handle an expected record number of mailed ballots.
Jordan Smellie moves absentee ballots to be counted at City Hall in Garden City, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)
Although access varies by state — with some mailing ballot to every registered resident and others requiring voters to retrieve ballots themselves — the Postal Service is facing serious questions about its ability to deliver ballots on time.
In July, Postal Service General Counsel Thomas Marshall reportedly told a top Michigan election official about a “significant risk that the voter will not have sufficient time to complete and mail the completed ballot back to election officials in time for it to arrive by the state’s return deadline.”
The long-troubled service has been battered since the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the nation in March, and it announced last month that it had lost $2.2 billion in just three months.
While Postmaster General Louis DeJoy did not deny the organization’s finances are “dire,” he has promised that it has “ample capacity to deliver all election mail securely and on time” even with the significant increase in mail-in ballots expected due to coronavirus fears.
DeJoy was subpoenaed by Congress following reports of widespread mail delivery delays, and reports in the past week have also raised questions about the Trump donor’s personal finances.
Despite the uncertainty, McConnell maintained Friday that the Postal Service “can handle this.”
The president did not share that confidence, telling a crowd in Pennsylvania on Thursday to vote twice in order to make sure their vote was received.
Voting twice is illegal.
“Sign your mail-in ballot, OK? You sign it and send it in and then you have to follow it. And if on Election Day or early voting, that is not tabulated and counted, you go vote,” he said. “And if for some reason after that — it shouldn’t take that long — they’re not going to be able to tabulate it because you would have voted.”
“But you have to make sure your vote counts, because the only way they are going to be able to beat us is by doing that kind of stuff,” Trump added.
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McConnell, who is running for reelection this year, said he supported giving the agency an additional $10 billion to ensure its election-related deliveries are handled properly.
Democrats proposed giving the Postal Service $25 billion to handle the extra mail.
Fox News’ Samuel Dorman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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