- President Donald Trump floated the idea of delaying the November election on Thursday morning on Twitter, but he doesn’t have the authority to do that.
- “With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history,” Trump tweeted. “It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???”
- Trump can’t cancel or postpone the election over the coronavirus pandemic – only an act of Congress could change the federal statute to shift the dates for when states appoint their electors.
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President Donald Trump floated the idea of postponing the November election in a tweet on Thursday morning.
He also once again used his platform to posit his baseless theory that mail-in voting is “fraudulent.”
With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020
Trump does not have the authority to cancel or postpone the election. Only an act of Congress could alter the federal statute outlining when states appoint their electors, which would be the most consequential way to move the timeline of the election.
Lots of replies have said "but what if Trump declares martial law?!"
But even that would likely not give him power to postpone election or delay end of his term on Jan. 20, 2021.
As Supreme Court said in Ex parte Milligan (1866), martial law does not suspend the Constitution https://t.co/FsiJXbENXi
— Josh Douglas (@JoshuaADouglas) March 14, 2020
Just 16 minutes before Trump tweeted, second-quarter economic data came out showing that GDP plunged at a 33% annualized rate.