The Daily Fuckup

On Sept. 2, 2020, Donald Trump used a stop in Wilmington, North Carolina, to float an idea that election officials quickly rejected: vote by mail, then see what happens if you try to vote again in person. In the White House transcript of the event, Trump said voters should “send it in” and then go vote, framing the suggestion as a test of the system. ([trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov](https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-designating-wilmington-north-carolina-first-american-world-war-ii-heritage-city-wilmington-nc/))

North Carolina officials answered in plain language. State Attorney General Josh Stein said on Sept. 7, 2020, that voting twice is against the law, that anyone who does it faces serious legal consequences, and that anyone who directs others to do it can face consequences too. He also said Trump had encouraged people to vote twice during the Wilmington briefing. ([ncdoj.gov](https://ncdoj.gov/attorney-general-josh-stein-releases-statement-on-voting-integrity/))

The state elections board said the same thing more mechanically. Its executive director, Karen Brinson Bell, said the statewide election management system would not allow a voter to vote twice in an election. She said that once one ballot is returned and accepted, the voter’s record shows the person has already voted, so a second ballot from that voter would not count. ([ncsbe.gov](https://www.ncsbe.gov/news/press-releases/2020/09/17/statement-mecklenburg-county-ballot-issue))

A year later, the episode was not notable because it was new. It stayed in circulation because it captured a pattern in Trump’s public line on elections: he repeatedly warned about fraud while also making comments that election officials had to clean up in real time. The remark in Wilmington was one of the clearest examples of that tension, and it remained part of the record when the 2021 campaign season backfilled the previous year’s political damage. ([trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov](https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-designating-wilmington-north-carolina-first-american-world-war-ii-heritage-city-wilmington-nc/))