Rigged elections, vulnerable voting machines, Chinese interference in the 2020 presidential election… A few months before the midterm legislative elections in November which could be unfavorable to him, Donald Trump once again sought to sow doubt on the integrity of the electoral system in a speech delivered on Thursday July 16 from the White House.
During this speech that some major channels had decided not to broadcast fearing an avalanche of untruths, the Republican notably accused Beijing of having illicitly obtained 220 million American voter files and organized a vast influence campaign to make him beat in 2020. He also blamed the “deep state” and “renegade bureaucrats” for having covered up these actions.
He also attacked voting machines, which were susceptible to hacking, and indicated that approximately 278,000 non-citizens had been identified on the electoral lists. “Every American deserves to know that when they vote, their ballot will be correctly counted in a reliable and secure system, where fraud and interference are not only difficult, but virtually impossible,” he said. Unfortunately, the system we have today falls far short of meeting this requirement. »
If the setting – solemn decor of the White House, prime time, etc. – gives it particular weight, Donald Trump’s speech has nothing new in substance. Since his defeat against Joe Biden in 2020, he has sought to make people believe that the electoral system is plagued by fraud. An assertion undermined by independent experts and election administrators.
A law designed for the ballot box
His current objective: to push Congress, where the Republican Party is in the majority, to adopt the “SAVE America Act”, a controversial text which notably plans to require people who register to vote to provide documentary proof of their American citizenship (passport, birth certificate, naturalization document) in order to prevent non-citizens from voting – a rare and illegal practice.
Critics of this bill fear on the contrary that it will lead to restricting the right to vote because millions of Americans do not have easy access to the required documents, in particular the elderly, the poor, students or certain minority groups. They are also concerned about the establishment of new conditions for voting by mail, a voting method mainly used by Democrats.
Donald Trump doesn’t see it that way. “The only reason why you would not vote in favor of this text is that you want to cheat,” he said on Thursday, as if to put pressure on those who, in his camp, express doubts about the feasibility of this potential law.
After having pushed Republican states to redraw the electoral districts of the House of Representatives to favor his party in the “midterms”, he wants to influence the results by all means. Traditionally, these mid-term elections do not favor the ruling party, especially when the president is unpopular. Which is the case today.
