Can you explain the meaningful distinctions? Besides the terminology...
President Donald Trump continues to draw false distinctions between mail-in and absentee ballots, claiming the former are rife with voter fraud while the latter — which he has used as president — require a voter to go through “a very strict process. The equivalent of going to a voting machine, or maybe even sometimes better.”
Voting experts told us the verification process is the same for absentee and mail-in ballots, and many states consider them to be the same thing.
As many states attempt to ramp up mail-in ballot options in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Trump has positioned himself as a staunch opponent, claiming that if states expand mail-in voting it will result in a “rigged election.”
In a
radio interview with Michael Savage on June 15, Trump warned that an expansion of mail-in ballots would increase “the chance of theft, where they steal them, they hold up mailmen, they take them out of mailboxes, they print them fraudulently.” Trump said a friend whose son died seven years ago told him that he recently received a ballot in his son’s name. “These mistakes are made by the millions,” Trump said.
Some in the media have pointed out the
apparent hypocrisy of Trump’s position on mail-in voting, given that he voted by mail in the Florida primary this year.
In his interview with Savage, Trump said his criticism of mail-in ballots did not extend to “absentee” ballots like the one he has said he cast.
“Go to a voting booth and vote,” Trump said. “Unless you’re an absentee, in which case they have to go through a whole process. In order to vote, they have to go through a very strict process. The equivalent of going to a voting machine, or maybe even sometimes better.”
It’s not the first time Trump has made this false distinction. Asked in a
press briefing on April 7 what the difference was between someone voting by mail in-state versus out-of-state, Trump claimed, “Well, there’s a big difference between somebody that’s out of state and does a ballot and everything is sealed, certified, and everything else.”
In fact, election officials say states use the same verification/certification process for absentee or mail-in ballots."
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/06/trumps-absentee-vs-mail-in-ballot-spin/?platform=hootsuite