Currents News Staff
President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden were both on the campaign trail Thursday, Sept. 18.
“This is the most important election in the history of our country,” said Trump.
“I’m going to be America’s president, not a Democratic president,” Biden said. “I’m a Democrat, proud of it, but America’s president.”
The race for the White House escalates as early in-person voting and absentee voting begin in several states.
Most mail-in ballot application deadlines are in October. It’s a process the Trump administration has repeatedly blasted, making unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud.
“Everyone knows mail-in ballots are a disaster,” said Trump.
Attorney General Bill Barr spoke about the mail-in ballots.
“‘Oh wait a minute, we just discovered 100,000 ballots. Every vote must be counted.’ You know, we don’t know where these freaking votes came from,” Barr said.
Biden calls such comments an attempt to delegitimize the election.
“Look, if the president had even remote confidence that he was likely to win the election, he wouldn’t be doing this,” he said.
But there’s greater interest in absentee and mail-in ballots nationwide this year, due to COVID-19.
Some fear the fraud claims could lead to problems. The president of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Kristen Clarke says the pandemic is playing a part.
“We started 2020 seeing intense levels of voter suppression and voting discrimination, and that picture has been compounded by the pandemic,” Clarke said.