President Donald Trump said Tuesday that it would be favorable to know election results by the end of Election Day and that he didn’t think it was within U.S. laws to be counting ballots for weeks after the election.
“It would be very, very proper and very nice if a winner were declared on November 3 instead of counting ballots for two weeks which is totally inappropriate and I don’t believe that that’s by our laws,” the president told reporters prior to taking a campaign trip to Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nebraska.
Trump also predicted a stimulus deal after the election, and said that he believes Republicans would take back the House of Representatives.
The president’s latest remarks on election results come after he expressed in a Twitter post in July: “Must know Election results on the night of the Election, not days, months, or even years later!”
It also comes after the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the state of Wisconsin can refuse to accept absentee ballots that come in after Election Day. In a 5-3 ruling, the court refused to reinstate a lower court order that called for counting mailed ballots in Wisconsin up to six days after Election Day.
This is different from what the Supreme Court ruled for Pennsylvania on Oct. 19, when it allowed a three-day extension for mail-in ballots. The justices were divided 4-4 over the matter that needed 5 votes to overturn a ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Earlier this month, Twitter joined Facebook in saying that it will censor premature claims of U.S. election victories and related posts.
Twitter will add labels to tweets “that falsely claim a win for any candidate,” Vijaya Gadde and Kayvon Beykpour, two Twitter employees, said in a blog post on Oct. 9. “People on Twitter, including candidates for office, may not claim an election win before it is authoritatively called.”
“To determine the results of an election in the US, we require either an announcement from state election officials, or a public projection from at least two authoritative, national news outlets that make independent election calls,” Twitter’s statement read.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in September said that the company would target “misinformation” in the run-up to the Nov. 3 elections.
Included among the steps was banning all political ads during the week before the elections, removing claims the company thinks would lead to voter suppression, and labeling posts that claim wins on election night.
“Some people think that we’re going to get an answer to who won the election on election night. I don’t think we’re necessarily going to get that. And I think it’s important that we start preparing people now,” Zuckerberg said on Sept. 3. “There’s nothing illegitimate about taking a few extra days—or even weeks—in order to make sure that all the votes get counted.”
Both Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey are set to face questioning in Congress on Oct. 28 about their content moderation policies.
Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.
