California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) issued an executive order on Friday allowing all voters in the state to vote by mail in the upcoming November elections to protect them from exposure to COVID-19 at polling sites.
Now a furious President Donald Trump is demanding that the votes in the deeply Democratic state be thrown out.
“So in California, the Democrats, who fought like crazy to get all mail in only ballots, and succeeded, have just opened a voting booth in the most Democrat area in the State,” he tweeted on Saturday. “They are trying to steal another election.”
“It’s all rigged out there,” Trump also wrote. “These votes must not count. SCAM!”
On the previous day, Newsom ordered all California county elections officials to send registered voters mail-in ballots for the elections on November 3 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The Golden State is the first in the country to do so.
“Elections and the right to vote are foundational to our democracy,” the governor stated in a press release. “No Californian should be forced to risk their health in order to exercise their right to vote.”
Newsom said in-person voting will still be available, and that California legislators are currently working on a plan to operate polling sites safely.
Trump often rails against statewide voting by mail–even though it would protect voters from the coronavirus outbreak and make it easier to vote in general–because it “doesn’t work out well for Republicans.”
“Republicans should fight very hard when it comes to state wide mail-in voting,” he tweeted in April.
