OF COURSE

Trump Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany Has Voted by Mail in Florida for 10 Years, Despite Touting Fraud Risk

President’s new rep has repeatedly parroted Trump’s unfounded claims that mail-in voting is linked to widespread election fraud. The Tampa Bay Times found her voting record.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has repeatedly defended President Donald Trump’s unfounded attack on mail-in voting. But she might want to take a look in the mirror. The Tampa Bay Times reviewed McEnany’s voting history in Florida and found she’d voted by mail 11 times in 10 years—that was every election she’d participated in since 2010. Trump also voted by mail in Florida during the state’s 2020 presidential primary, and McEnany defended it last week as necessary because “he’s here in Washington.” Several states have allowed residents to apply to vote by mail in light of the coronavirus pandemic. Trump has threatened to withhold funding from some of those states and McEnany has parroted the president’s false claims that mail-in voting is tied to large-scale election fraud. Incidents of voter fraud have historically been rare and isolated.

McEnany responded to the Tampa Bay Times report on Twitter, posting: “Absentee voting has the word absent in it for a reason. It means you’re absent from the jurisdiction or unable to vote in person.” A second tweet said: “President @realDonaldTrump is against the Democrat plan to politicize the coronavirus and expand mass mail-in voting without a reason, which has a high propensity for voter fraud. This is a simple distinction that the media fails to grasp.”