Trump says with increased mail-in voting, it could take 'years' to know who won the election

Donald Trump.
(Image credit: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

President Trump on Thursday evening claimed that if more people are able to vote by mail, it could take "years" to find out the winner of the 2020 presidential election.

On Thursday morning, Trump floated the possibility of postponing the election rather than letting more people vote by mail amid the pandemic. Under the Constitution, Congress has the power to set the date for voting, and Trump's idea was quickly batted down by top Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

During a press conference later in the day, Trump tried to create doubt over how states will distribute mail-in ballots. "You're sending out hundreds of millions of universal mail-in ballots, hundreds of millions," he said. "Where are they going, who are they being sent to? It's common sense."

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Trump, whose poll numbers are dropping, said he wants to know the results on election night and have newscasters "say the projected winner or the winner of the election. I don't want to see that take place in a week after Nov. 3, or a month, or frankly, with litigation and everything else that could happen, years, or you never even know who won the election."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.