White House press secretary refuses to say it's illegal to vote twice in an election

President Trump repeatedly told his supporters in North Carolina on Wednesday that they should vote twice in the presidential election, first by mail and then in person. But as is often the White House's attempt at clearing up Trump's missteps, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany essentially insisted that everyone who watched Trump heard him wrong.

A reporter on Thursday asked McEnany point blank if it's illegal to vote twice in the same election, but she refused to answer. McEnany instead insisted "the president does not condone unlawful voting," and said the reporter was "missing a very crucial line from the president's remarks." Trump had suggested testing if a local election bureau had recorded a person's vote by mail, suggesting they wouldn't be allowed to vote in person if it had and that their vote would later be canceled if it hadn't.

But as the reporter noted, not every state counts absentee votes before Election Day, meaning a prior vote may not have been in the books by the time someone came around a second time. It also doesn't seem healthy for democracy if Trump is explicitly asking his supporters to test an electoral system's limits, especially since it's widely known that America's election systems don't always function as well as they should.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

McEnany made a similar statement Thursday morning on Fox News, saying "the president is not suggesting anyone do anything unlawful." To be clear, it's against the law to intentionally vote twice anywhere in the U.S. And in North Carolina, where Trump encouraged the crime, it's a felony.