"I think it's a terrible thing when ballots can be collected after an election," said Trump after landing in North Carolina. "I think it's a terrible thing when states are allowed to tabulate ballots for a long period of time after the election is over, because it can only lead to one thing, and that's very bad. You know has that thing is."
Trump didn't clarify what that "thing" is, however.
"I think it's a very dangerous, terrible thing. I think it's terrible where we can't know the results of an election the night of the election in a modern-day age of computers. Think it's a terrible thing. I happen to think it was a terrible decision made by our country made by the Supreme Court. I think it's a terrible decision, a dangerous decision. You're going to have one or two or three states depending on how it ends up, where they are tabulating ballots and the rest of the world is waiting to find out. I think there's great danger to it, and I think a lot of fraud and misuse can take place."
Trump didn't explain why counting the ballots would cause fraud, however.
"I think it's a terrible decision by the Supreme Court, a terrible decision. I don't know if that's going to be changed," Trump continued. "We're going to go in the night of, as soon as that election is over, we're going in with our lawyers. But we don't want to have Pennsylvania where you have a political governor, a very partisan guy, and we don't want other states like Nevada where you have the head of the Democratic clubhouse as your governor, we don't want to be in a position where he's allowed every day to watch ballots come in."
Trump didn't explain why someone "watching ballots come" in would lead to fraud, particularly given the county clerks are the ones who handle ballots coming in, not the state.
"Here we can only have 10,000 more ballots. we're doing great in Nevada, great in Arizona, great all over," Trump went on, ignoring polls showing the contrary. "If you take Nevada or Pennsylvania, and everyone knows what happens in Philadelphia, you don't have to say it. I've read about it for years. I don't think it's fair that we have to wait a long period of time after the election. If people wanted to get their ballots in, they should have gotten their ballots in long before that, long time. They don't have to put their ballots in the same day. They could put their ballots in a month ago. We think it's a ridiculous decision."
It's a dramatic shift in Trump's belief because he has said for months that voting by mail is fraud and falsely claimed it could be illegal. He spoke out so much against voting by mail that he actually reduced the number of Republicans who used mail-in voting in Florida.
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