Former President Jimmy Carter expressed support for voting by mail after the White House said he previously called absentee ballots the largest source of potential voter fraud.
“I approve the use of absentee ballots and have been using them for more than five years,” Mr. Carter said in a statement Thursday.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany mentioned Mr. Carter to reporters earlier in the afternoon while defending President Trump’s recent attacks on voting by mail.
“Don’t take it from me, take it from Jimmy Carter, who said in 2005, as part of a bipartisan commission, ’Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud,’” Ms. McEnany said.
Mr. Carter, a Democrat in the White House from 1977 to 1981, indeed co-chaired the Commission on Federal Election Reform cited by Ms. McEnany decades after his presidency ended.
But the commission also found little evidence of voter fraud in states with safeguards in place for casting ballots by mail, and Mr. Carter has recently endorsed the concept.
“I urge political leaders across the country to take immediate steps to expand vote-by-mail and other measures that can help protect the core of American democracy — the right of our citizens to vote,” Mr. Carter said in May.
Millions of Americans are set to vote by mail or in advance of Election Day, Nov. 3, because of safety and health measures resulting from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Republicans within the administration — including Mr. Trump and Attorney General William P. Barr, among others — oppose universally expanding voting by mail over concerns of fraud.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned Thursday that Russian is “amplifying criticisms” about mail-in voting to undermine trust in the electoral process, meanwhile.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.