(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump voted early in the Florida Republican primary on Wednesday, casting his ballot at a polling location near his home in Palm Beach. But Trump’s participation in early voting offers a stark contrast to some of his previous criticisms of the practice.
Walking out of the polling site on Wednesday, Trump called it a “great honor to vote” and praised the “fantastic job” done by the poll workers.
However, he has repeatedly flip-flopped in his messaging to supporters, sometimes encouraging them to vote early or by mail — while at other times making false and misleading claims about the security of the process.
“Mail-in voting is totally corrupt,” Trump falsely claimed in February at a campaign rally in Michigan. “Get that through your head. It has to be.”
In March, Trump again falsely claimed that “anytime the mail is involved, you’re going to have cheating,” which he said during an interview with the far-right British politician Nigel Farage.
That rhetoric was central to Trump’s attempt to undermine the results of the 2020 election false claims pushed by him and his supporters that electoral fraud stole victory from him in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin that year.
No widespread vote-by-mail fraud has ever been found despite the claims.
A Washington Post analysis of data collected in three vote-by-mail states from 2016 and 2018 showed that instances of double voting and people voting on behalf of deceased people made up just 0.0025% of the more than 14.6 million ballots cast. That amounts to 372 possible instances of fraud, far from what would be required to swing a national election.
With polls predicting neck-and-neck races in crucial battleground states, Trump and his allies have sought to retool their message around early and absentee voting in recent months while still trying to hold on to the hard line Trump drew against those practices in 2020.
“President Trump has been very clear in his remarks and rally speeches throughout this campaign cycle that Americans should vote early if their states allow,” Trump campaign’s national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to ABC News.
“[Elections] used to be one day, now it’s, you know, two months,” Trump said, complaining about early voting at a Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in June. But then, during the same speech, he urged his supporters to vote early if they wanted.
“Do it early. Do it. Just do it. You’ve got to vote. And watch your vote, guard your vote, and follow your vote,” he said.
Republican National Committee Co-Chair Mark Whatley, who was hand-picked by Trump following the ouster of former party chair Ronna McDaniel, has advocated for creating a “national early-vote program” that will target and encourage voters to get to the ballot box.
“Voters can vote early. They can vote on Election Day. They can vote by mail. Do I care how they vote? No, I do not,” Whatley said at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in June. “I care that they vote.”
Asked about Trump’s comments against mail-in voting, Whatley claimed the Republican Party is investing a significant amount of resources “protecting the vote” to ensure “election integrity” so voters can trust the system.
“We are spending a very significant amount of our time protecting the vote. We are building the Protect the Vote campaign around it,” Whatley said, referring to the latest iteration of the Republican Party’s get-out-the-vote effort.
At campaign rallies in recent weeks, the former president’s campaign has also promoted mail-in and early voting, putting up signs encouraging supporters to request mail-in ballots or pledge to vote early in person.
Trump echoed that message during a campaign rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, last month while still falsely alluding to the idea that the 2020 election was stolen.
“If you want to save America, get your friends, get your family, get everyone you know, and vote,” Trump said in the state, which will kick off early voting for the general election on Sept. 16 — the first in the country. “Vote early, vote absentee, vote on Election Day. I don’t care when you vote, but whatever you do, you have to vote and make sure your ballot counts.”
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