Kayleigh McEnany discusses reports she voted by mail 11 times
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany reacts to reports she voted by mail 11 times on 'America's Newsroom'
Reacting to a Tampa Bay Times report that she had mailed in 11 ballots over the course of a decade, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany reasserted Thursday that she is entitled to mail-in voting and defended President Trump's stance on the issue.
Appearing on America's Newsroom" with hosts Ed Henry and Sandra Smith, McEnany explained that the president had been "very clear" on the issue.
"Every American is entitled to vote the way that I did," she said. "If you are someone who is working out of state but your domicile is in a different state, you are absolutely entitled to request an absentee ballot and to cast your ballot by mail. I am entitled to that. The average voter is entitled to that."
"The president has no qualms with that," McEnany added. "He's for absentee voting for a reason."
According to McEnany, what the president is "not for" is "mass mail-in voting" that the administration contends Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi supports.
Last week, Pelosi touted a $3.6 billion vote-by-mail proposal -- which she rechristened “Voting at Home” during an appearance on MSNBC's "The Last Word."
Pelosi said the plan was aimed at making voting more convenient and safe for Americans amid the coronavirus pandemic, allowing them to participate in elections from home without exposing themselves to the risk of contracting the virus.
The president, however, continues to claim that mail-in voting is susceptible to fraud, casting it as a lawless exercise where ballots are stolen from mailboxes, voter signatures are routinely forged and ballots themselves are illegally printed.
"There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent..." Trump tweeted Tuesday. "This will be a Rigged Election. No way!"
Mail voting fraud is reportedly rare and, according to Fortune, a very small percentage of total vote-by-mail votes cast have been fraudulent over the last 20 years.
Trump himself voted by mail in April's Florida primary.
"Where in L.A. County you have 112 percent of the population registered, ask yourself how that happens," McEnany told the "Newsroom" hosts.
"And 112 percent of the population gets a ballot. Well, that leaves [at least] 12 percent subject to fraud…So, that’s what he’s against," she added. "He’s not against the average every day American who has a reason for casting their ballot -- to get an absentee cast in that manner."
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In 2019, California and Los Angeles County agreed to purge as many as 1.5 million inactive voter registrations across the state after a lawsuit from conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch.
The suit alleged that the county, with more than 10 million residents, has more voter registrations than it has citizens old enough to register -- with a registration rate of 112 percent of its adult citizen population.
An agreement settling the case required that all of the 1.5 million potentially ineligible registrants be notified and asked to respond. If there is no response, those names are to be removed as required by the National Voter Registration Act.
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