Trump threatens to cut states' election funding over false claims of voter fraud

Donald Trump falsely accused two states of facilitating voter fraud and threatened to withhold critical election funding from them on Wednesday because of their efforts to make it easier to cast a ballot during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Trump targeted Nevada and Michigan, a critical swing state he won by just over 10,000 votes in 2016. Trump incorrectly said Michigan was planning to send a mail-in ballot to every voter for elections in 2020. The state announced on Tuesday it was sending an absentee ballot application, not a ballot, to every registered voter.

Georgia’s secretary of state, a Republican, announced a similar plan earlier this year, a plan reportedly developed in coordination with the Trump campaign. Republican secretaries of state in other places, including Iowa and West Virginia have also decided to send absentee ballot applications to all voters.

In a second tweet on Wednesday, Trump also suggested he would block federal funding from Nevada after its Republican secretary of state decided to mail a ballot to voters for the state’s 9 June primary. Facing a Democratic-led lawsuit, Clark county, home of 70% of voters, agreed to send ballots to not just active voters, but inactive ones the state suspects have moved. Republicans argue that decision leaves ballots vulnerable to fraud.

Several studies have shown voter fraud is extremely rare and Trump himself voted by mail in Florida earlier this year.

“President Donald Trump’s statement is false. The Bureau of Elections is mailing absent voter applications, not ballots,” Jake Rollow, a spokesman for Michigan’s secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, said in a statement. “Applications are mailed nearly every election cycle by both major parties and countless advocacy and nonpartisan organizations.”

But Benson’s effort could still be met with a legal challenge, the Detroit Free Press reported on Tuesday. In 2008, the Michigan court of appeals ruled that a local clerk could not automatically send voters over 60 an absentee ballot application, a ruling that could be used to challenge the state’s decision.

Trump’s tweets underscore the escalating war over vote-by-mail between Republicans and Democrats. Democrats are aggressively moving to expand mail-in voting options amid the pandemic, while Republicans are allocating at least $20m to oppose those efforts. Republicans generally have been open to plans to mail applications to voters, but have firmly resisted efforts to automatically send ballots.

Wednesday’s tweets elevated that fight, suggesting that the president could interfere in state elections. It is unclear if he has the authority to block the funds. A senior administration official said “no decisions have been made at this time, discussions are on-going.”

Congress approved $400m in election assistance earlier this year, a small fraction of the $4bn experts say is needed. Michigan requested about $11.3m in federal funds to help it run elections this year and has spent $4.5m to mail absentee ballot applications.

Nevada requested nearly $4.5m in federal funding to help facilitate voting by mail this year. State officials said they plan to use the money to print ballots and pay for postage and “a large-scale voter education campaign”.