by Former President Donald Trump bizarrely claimed that “paper is now more advanced than computers” after voting in Florida on Tuesday – repeating his false claim that US states do not use paper ballots.
Trump twice raised the subject of paper ballots while speaking to reporters outside a polling station in Palm Beach.
“You know paper is more advanced than computers these days,” Trump said as he stood next to his wife Melania Trump. “It’s watermarked paper. You can’t do it – it’s, it’s – you can’t do it. It’s unbelievable what happens to it. You can’t do anything to cheat, and of course you have virtually nothing to run with. “
Trump, 78, also claimed: “I hear they won’t have an answer for another two or three days in Pennsylvania.”
“Something like that should never happen. This election should be over. They spend all this money on machines, and honestly, if they used paper ballots, it would be over by 10 o’clock,” he said, looking tired after his campaign. until early in the morning on the Michigan battlefield.
About 98% of all votes cast in this year’s presidential election will be recorded on paper, up from 93% in 2020, after the 2002 Help America Vote Act phased out the use of leverage machines and punch cards, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. .
The nonpartisan group Verified Voting also says that 69.9% of registered voters in the U.S. live in places that use hand-marked paper ballots and 25.1% live in places that use electronic ballot marking devices that create paper ballots.
Louisiana and three Texas counties — which account for 1.4% of all registered voters — are the only places using electronic voting machines that don’t create a paper trail, according to Verified Voting.
In Palm Beach County, Florida, where Trump voted, both methods are available, according to local TV station WPTV.
“Florida is a paper voting state,” Wendy Sartory-Link, county supervisor of elections, told WPTV. “Anyone who casts a ballot in Florida, it doesn’t matter what county they’re in, they’re going to do so on a paper ballot.”
Trump has repeatedly called for the US to introduce paper ballots, including during a rally on Sunday in Pennsylvania and a Friday interview with podcaster Joe Rogan.
His claims about paper ballots were among 15 false statements he made while speaking to reporters for 15 minutes on Tuesday, according to the Washington Post’s “Fact Checker” column.
