Colorado’s top elections official on Thursday accused President Donald Trump of lying about vote by mail as the President continues to baselessly assert that mail-in voting is wrought with fraud and abuse.
“President Trump is lying about vote by mail. He is lying about mail ballots,” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, told CNN’s Erin Burnett on “OutFront.”
“Colorado has a very clean history of running great elections with vote by mail. We have safeguards in place to make sure we would catch any type of double voting including signature verification, rules about ballot collection and a lot of other safeguards.”
Earlier Thursday, the President said on Fox Business that he opposes much-needed funding for the United States Postal Service because he doesn’t want to see it used for mail-in voting this November. Trump has railed against mail-in voting for months amid efforts to expand it during the coronavirus pandemic.
Griswold said on CNN that the President’s comments amounted to “voter suppression because mail ballots are the best way to vote during a pandemic.”
“To force Americans into the choice of risking their lives to cast a ballot is a measure to decrease turnout in November,” she said. “We should all be very alarmed at where the President is going.”
She argued that vote by mail is “like wearing a mask” because it’s “the way we can save Americans’ lives.”
“Americans shouldn’t have to choose between risking their life and casting a ballot,” she said.
The President has pushed claims that wider mail-in voting would lead to voter fraud and hurt his re-election and Republicans across the board. But there’s no evidence of widespread voter fraud in US elections, and nonpartisan experts say neither party automatically benefits when states expand access to mail-in voting.
Trump during a White House briefing Thursday said he wants Americans to vote this fall but “they would have to go to a voting booth like they used to and vote.”
Griswold on CNN said it’s not realistic to demand every American vote in-person at a polling center.
“I just think it is so reprehensible that the President is willing to risk American lives to try to shift the power in this election,” she said.
CNN’s Ellie Kaufman, Marshall Cohen, Jason Hoffman and Nicky Robertson contributed to this report.
