As the election approaches, many Americans are presented with a large amount of voting options. In addition to voting the traditional way on Election Day, many Americans are voting early, with a polling location right here on campus in the UConn Bookstore. Additionally, many people are taking advantage of mail-in voting options. Despite voting becoming more accessible, which is good for our democracy, former President Donald Trump spent years fighting many of these measures. However, as the election looms closer, he and his campaign have strategically decided to flip their stance on this matter. This shows that the Trump campaign’s stance on mail-in voting is not based on facts, or what is better for democracy, but rather is entirely self-serving.
During and after the 2020 election, former President Trump was very much opposed to measures that made voting more accessible. According to CNN, “In 2020, the Trump campaign filed several lawsuits to stop many of the changes made by states to make it easier to vote by mail.” Just as recently as this January, Trump said. “We have to get rid of mail-in ballots because once you have mail-in ballots, you have crooked elections.” As demonstrated through both his campaign’s actions and his own rhetoric, former President Trump had taken a very firm stance against mail-in ballots.
Now as the 2024 presidential election approaches, we see a very sudden shift in Trump’s stance. This past April, Trump took to Truth Social, and posted “ABSENTEE VOTING, EARLY VOTING, AND ELECTION DAY VOTING ARE ALL GOOD OPTIONS.” With such a sudden shift in Trump’s stance, one has to consider the reasoning behind such a switch. Specifically, is this because of a fundamental change in how Donald Trump views these new voting measures, or are they done for strategic and electoral reasonings? Unfortunately, it seems that the real reason is the latter.
According to the University of Florida, 4,399,488 Republican mail-in ballots have been accepted thus far this election. This goes to show that many Trump supporters are using mail-in voting to vote for him. And there is certainly a benefit to the Republican Party and their candidates to push people to vote by mail, as “GOP strategists [see] mail voting as an advantage in campaigns because it lets them “bank” unreliable votes before Election Day and lowers the risk of turnout plummeting because of bad weather or other unpredictable factors at the polls.”
Donald Trump is in a close race for the presidency against Kamala Harris, and to win he needs every vote he can get. This is something his advisors likely know and is a fact that he seems to have finally accepted. Yet, one has to question the ethics of having a political opinion simply for electoral purposes. Does Donald Trump really believe that mail-in voting can be linked to fraud, or does he think it’s a viable option for the country? Based on his switch in position, he either lied to the American people in 2020, or he is pushing something he does not believe now to get votes. As someone who might be the leader of our country for the next four years, we have to consider whether Donald Trump is capable of doing what is in the best interest of the American people, or if his motives are purely based on self-interest.
Featured Image from Unsplash/Joshua Woroniecki