President Donald Trump’s suggestion on Twitter, that the November election might need to be delayed, is being batted down by political scientists and members of both political parties.
With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020
“There’s simply no ambiguity, that a president simply does not have any authority to do this,” said University of Wisconsin political scientist Ken Mayer, when asked asked about the president’s latest musings on his favorite social media platform.
Only Congress has that authority, and that’s not happening. Wisconsin politicians of both parties, including U-S Senator Tammy Baldwin and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, were quick to condemn Trump.
@wisgop was right not to follow @GovEvers request to delay the April election and we shouldn’t delay the November election either. Elections need to happen for democracy to function.
— Robin Vos (@repvos) July 30, 2020
No @realDonaldTrump, the election is not going to be delayed. The American people are going to vote and take back our Democracy to bring about the change they want and need.
— Sen. Tammy Baldwin (@SenatorBaldwin) July 30, 2020
“There is nobody, or nobody responsible or nobody honest, who will tell you anything other than that this is something flatly, emphatically, end of story, period, no question at all, (the) president can’t do,” Mayer said.
Ken Mayer
Mayer also noted that Trump likes to use Twitter to deflect attention from unpleasant news.
“The fact that we’re talking about this rather than the Commerce Department releasing the worst quarterly economic news ever, gives you some idea of why Trump does this.”