“Trump spreads new lies about foreign-backed voter fraud, stoking fears of a ‘rigged election’ this November”

CNN:

Reeling after a weekend campaign rally with lower-than-expected turnout, President Donald Trump changed the subject Monday morning with a series of widely debunked lies about alleged voter fraud in US elections, stoking fears of a “rigged election” this November.

Trump tweeted an article highlighting Attorney General William Barr’s recent comment that expanding mail-in voting “absolutely opens the floodgates to fraud.” (This specific claim has been debunked many times.) Trump added his own commentary to the article, tweeting, “This will be the Election disaster of our time. Mail-In Ballots will lead to a RIGGED ELECTION!”Trump then tweeted an all-caps missive with many of the debunked claims he’s been pushing all year: “RIGGED 2020 ELECTION: MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES, AND OTHERS. IT WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES!”

In a third tweet Monday morning, Trump said “Because of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, 2020 will be the most RIGGED Election in our nations history – unless this stupidity is ended,” and accused his political opponents of “using Covid in order to cheat by using Mail-Ins,” without providing proof.C

Nonpartisan election experts rejected Trump’s claims on Monday within minutes of his tweets.”That info is FALSE,” David Becker, founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and research, tweeted in response to Trump’s posts Monday morning. “There is zero evidence to support it, and states have many protections in place to prevent rigging of mail ballots.”

It would be a “waste of paper” for foreign countries to print fraudulent ballots, tweeted Michael McDonald, a political science professor at the University of Florida who runs the United States Elections Project and is a leading authority on voting data and statistics. “The legally valid (ballots) printed by election officials have many safeguards to protect against fraudulent voting.”

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