Speaking to a crowd during a campaign stop in Latrobe, Pa., Trump expanded on remarks that caused a firestorm on Wednesday, when he urged supporters to vote by mail and then attempt to vote in person.
The president reiterated that this is necessary to ensure that their vote is tabulated.
“Sign your mail-in ballot, OK? You sign it and send it in and then you have to follow it. And if on election day or early voting, that is not tabulated and counted, you go vote,” Trump told the crowd. “And if for some reason after that — it shouldn’t take that long — they’re not going to be able to tabulate it because you would have voted.”
“But you have to make sure your vote counts, because the only way they are going to be able to beat us is by doing that kind of stuff,” Trump continued.
It is illegal for voters to intentionally vote twice in an election. After Trump made remarks in North Carolina on Wednesday encouraging voters to vote twice to test the system, the executive director of the state’s board of elections issued a statement making clear that voting twice is illegal.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Thursday that Trump was not suggesting people “do anything unlawful” but that he was telling voters to verify that their ballots are counted in the November election.