Over the weekend, former Vice President Joe Biden repeated a conspiracy theory floated by other Democrats, including failed 2016 presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, that President Donald Trump can delay the presidential election indefinitely using the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse.
Speaking to a “virtual fundraiser,” Biden said he was comfortable in predicting that Trump would cancel the November contest, pushing the election to a more favorable time for the incumbent president, according to CNN.
“Mark my words: I think he is gonna try to kick back the election somehow, come up with some rationale why it can’t be held,” Biden said. “That’s the only way he thinks he can possibly win.”
Biden, of course, went on to say that he believes the election should be held in November, regardless of whether the threat of coronavirus has passed. Over the past week, Biden has become a vocal advocate for the Democrats’ universal “vote by mail” program, which would have all Americans casting mail-in, absentee-style ballots rather than stand in line at polling locations.
Republicans have largely derided the idea, citing persistent issues with the current absentee ballot programs, and noting that states are unprepared to handle the millions of ballots that would flood into election offices.
Wisconsin — a state that ultimately decided not to change the date of its primary and instead held in-person voting during its coronavirus lockdown — rationalized its decision by saying that its state election officies were having difficulty processing the million-plus mail-in ballots and couldn’t handle a further flood.
A handful of Democrats have suggested that Trump may try to delay the election as an alternative to the vote-by-mail option, but it’s not that simple: the president, as CNN points out, cannot unilaterly move the date of the election, which is set in stone in Federal law as the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November:
“The Tuesday next after the 1st Monday in November, in every even numbered year, is established as the day for the election, in each of the States and Territories of the United States, of Representatives and Delegates to the Congress commencing on the 3d day of January next thereafter.”
In order for that date to change, it would take an act of Congress — and Congress isn’t exactly on the president’s side in all of this. The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), certainly wouldn’t be open to any change in the presidential election that might ultimately benefit President Trump, and even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who has been a White House ally but could be best described as “Trump skeptical” isn’t likely to take the president’s side on this without clear reason.
Even Biden recognizes the possibility is slim. In an interview with Jimmy Kimmel last month, he admitted as much, telling the late-night host that Trump “doesn’t have the authority to” delay the election, and the worst Trump could do is start a “drumbeat” pressing for a popular uprising on the subject.
The Trump campaign wrote off Biden’s suggestion as Biden being Biden.
“Those are the incoherent, conspiracy theory ramblings of a lost candidate who is out of touch with reality,” Tim Murtaugh, the Trump 2020 campaign’s communications director responded. “President Trump has been clear that the election will happen on November 3rd.”
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