President Donald Trump tried to register to vote in Florida while listing his address as the White House, which runs afoul of state law.
According to documents obtained by the Washington Post, he resubmitted his application with a Florida address — Mar-a-Lago — and voted in the state’s Republican primary in March.
He submitted the original registration form with the D.C. address on September 27, 2019 — the same day that he, with much fanfare, separately changed his permanent address to Mar-a-Lago.
At the time, he complained that “few have been treated worse” than he was by state and city political leaders in New York as rationale for the domicile change. Thus, on that day, he claimed both Mar-a-Lago and the White House as his permanent residence on different forms.
Florida voters have faced steep penalties for voting with a phony registration, as in the case of Deltona, Florida’s city manager last year.
Ironically, the White House itself uses registering to vote with the address of a second home as an example of voting fraud on its official website.
It’s not the first time Trump has had difficulty with his absentee ballot. In New York’s 2017 mayoral race, he wrote his birthday down wrong, inputting July 14, 1946 instead of June 14.
Trump has made screeds against voting by mail, and specious claims of widespread absentee ballot fraud, a central theme of his campaign.
When asked why he makes exceptions to the “dangerous” system for himself, he told reporters at a White House press briefing in April that he’s “allowed” to vote absentee because he was out of state at the White House for the Florida primary. In fact, any eligible voter is allowed to vote by mail in Florida. Per the Florida state department, no excuse is required to vote remotely.
Read Trump’s voter registration form here:
