Trump Steps Up Attacks on Mail Vote, Making False Claims About Michigan

President Trump threatened to withhold federal funding for Michigan and Nevada if the states moved forward in expanding vote by mail.

President Trump on Wednesday incorrectly accused Michigan’s Democratic secretary of state of mailing ballots to all of the state’s registered voters, falsely claiming that it was illegal, as he escalated his assault against mail voting.

The president also threatened to withhold federal funds to Michigan and Nevada if the states proceed in expanding vote-by-mail efforts.

“Michigan sends absentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of primaries and the general election,” the president tweeted. “This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue secretary of state. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this voter fraud path!”

The Twitter post was the latest in a series of broadsides the president has aimed at the vote-by-mail process that has become the primary vehicle for voting in an electoral system transformed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Michigan’s secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, announced on Tuesday that she will send absentee ballot applications — and not actual ballots, as the president claimed — to the state’s voters, replicating an effort that elections officials across the country have made during the health crisis.

In a tweet posted on Wednesday, Ms. Benson, said that the state “sent applications, not ballots. Just like my G.O.P. colleagues in Iowa, Georgia, Nebraska and West Virginia.” The president is scheduled to visit Michigan on Thursday.