Vermont Republican Gov. Phil Scott said Friday that comments by President Donald Trump casting doubts on the integrity of the election process are hurting society.
Scott said all legal votes cast in the 2020 presidential election need to be counted, including mail-in votes.
Scott’s comments came a day after President Donald Trump made baseless claims of fraud in the ballot-counting process for the presidential election.
Scott said the president’s comments are “inciting a lot of rhetoric” and that many of his followers take him at his word.
“I don’t believe any of the statements he made last night are true and I do believe it is hurting our society and our ability to work together,” Scott said during his regular virus briefing.
Scott, the Republican governor of the blue state of Vermont, has been a frequent critic of Trump. After voting on Tuesday, he said he had cast his presidential ballot for former Vice President Joe Biden.
Scott, who said he had never voted for a Democratic presidential candidate before, said he had to put “country over party.”
While the voting process in Vermont finished Tuesday night, Scott said the wait for results from other states has “caused a lot of anxiety, but this is the process.”
“I want to be very clear,” Scott said. “Every single legal vote should be counted and verified mail-in ballots are legal votes.”
Scott then quoted a tweet from Tom Ridge, the former Republican governor of Pennsylvania and a former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, who wrote that the president’s Thursday comments “disrespected every single American who figured out a way to safely vote amid a pandemic, not to mention those who are dutifully counting that vote. Absolutely shameful.”
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