Trump’s Press Secretary Has Solely Voted By Mail Since 2010, Report Says, Despite Claims Of Fraud Risks

TOPLINE

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany has supported President Donald Trump’s baseless claims that voting by mail is wrought with fraud, but she has taken extensive advantage of Florida rules that allow that practice, with a Tampa Bay Times review finding McEnany has mailed in a ballot for every election she’s participated in since 2010.

KEY FACTS

The Tampa Bay Times found that McEnany, a Tampa native, has voted by mail 11 times over the past 10 years, and—like Trump—cast a mail-in ballot for the state’s March Republican presidential primary.

McEnany, 32, has previously defended Trump’s decision to mail in a ballot, saying the move was necessary since he’s based in Washington, D.C.

Responding to the Tampa Bay Times' story, McEnany made a similar argument for her own decision, saying “absentee voting has the word absent for a reason.”

But the state of Florida doesn’t actually have absentee voting — any voter in the state is able to get a mail-in ballot without providing a reason — though McEnany has said that mail-in voting shouldn’t be available to anyone.

The newspaper said it has reached out to McEnany asking if she’d like to see the Florida law changed, but has not received a response.

KEY BACKGROUND

Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that mail-in ballots lead to election fraud. The president even threatened to cut off federal funding to the swing states of Michigan and Nevada as they weighed whether to expand mail-in voting as a matter of public safety to control spread of the coronavirus—a step several states have already taken. Trump later backed off on that threat.

The president has gone on extensive rants against mail-in voting via his Twitter account, writing Tuesday morning, “There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed.” That led the social media platform for the first time to fact-check the president, providing a link under the tweet to reliable news sources that refuted the president’s claims. 

Trump has since vowed to take action against social media platforms he feels give him unfair treatment.

CRITICAL QUOTE

"President Trump is against the Democrat plan to politicize the coronavirus and expand mass mail-in voting without a reason, which has a high propensity for voter fraud. This is a simple distinction that the media fails to grasp,” McEnany said in an email to the Tampa Bay Times.

WHAT TO WATCH FOR

The Election Commission in Wisconsin—a key swing state that Trump narrowly won in 2016—will consider Wednesday whether to mail absentee ballot applications to millions of registered voters ahead of the November election.

FURTHER READING

Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has voted by mail 11 times in 10 years (Tampa Bay Times)

Kayleigh McEnany: Trump Supports Vote by Mail ‘For a Reason’—Just Not a Pandemic (The Daily Beast)

Twitter Fact-Checks President Trump For The First Time (Forbes)