Trump on Rep. Maloney’s Primary Win After Mail-In Ballots: “You Have To Do That Election Over”

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President Trump used the Congressional primary election that took 6 weeks to determine incumbent Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) as the winner as an example of the difficulties with mail-in voting at a press conference on Tuesday. Maloney was challenged by Suraj Patel, an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez-endorsed progressive.

“When you look at the Carolyn Maloney election, I think they – and I’ll give you the story: I think you have to do that election over. That election is no good. You have to take a look,” Trump told reporters.

“In New York, they have thousands of ballots. They don’t know what happened to them. Is there fraud? Is there – it’s a disaster. And that’s only for a relatively small number of ballots. But I think they have to do the election in New York over. The Times wrote a big story about it yesterday. Front-page story. It’s a disaster. It’s a mess. And they have to do that – I think they have to do that election over. Nobody can know what the election result is.” Trump reiterated.

Roll Call reports on the election:

Maloney’s primary was in limbo for six weeks due to a surge in absentee ballots cast in the June 23 primary because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The primary has been mired in a legal fight over invalid absentee ballots, which had to be delivered to election officials by June 30. Patel filed a lawsuit to count ballots that arrived by the deadline but were not properly postmarked. According to the Washington Post, the U.S. Postal Service may not have postmarked the pre-paid ballot return envelopes that were used due to Democratic Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s executive order in response to the pandemic. New Yorkers typically have to provide their own postage, which is postmarked.

On Monday, a federal judge ruled that some absentee ballots without postmarks but received two days after the primary should be counted, according to CNN. Those additional ballots were not included in the results certified Tuesday, Vazquez confirmed.