Republicans wasted no time in criticizing Gov. Tim Walz after Vice President Kamala Harris picked him as her running mate. But one of the Trump campaign’s attack lines landed awkwardly.
Walz’s “policies to allow convicted felons to vote” in Minnesota are evidence that he “is obsessed with spreading California’s dangerously liberal agenda far and wide,” said Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign.
But critics of the former president were quick to point out that, if not for such policies, Trump himself would be barred from voting.
A jury in New York convicted Trump of 34 felonies this year for falsifying business records to cover up a hush-money payment to a porn actor. While he is trying to overturn the verdict, it remains in place, and he is scheduled to be sentenced in September.
Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump White House aide who is now a co-host of “The View,” wondered on social media, “Does he not believe he should be able to vote for himself?”
Former Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., who has been sharply critical of Trump, wrote: “Big reminder that Trump is a convicted felon with indicted felonies still to go to trial … and wants to pardon hundreds of violent Jan 6 felons but yeah, talk about felons, Mr. First ever nominated felon.”
Trump is registered to vote in Florida, which, when it comes to whether felons can vote, defers to the laws of the state where a conviction took place. New York allows people with felony convictions to vote unless they are in prison, so Trump can cast a ballot unless he is incarcerated on Election Day.
Stricter laws in many Republican-led states would stop him from voting until he had completed all terms of his sentence, including parole or probation — or, in some cases, require further action to have his voting rights restored even after he completed his sentence.
Leavitt said: “President Trump is eligible to vote. This does not apply to him at all.”
A bill Walz signed last year made Minnesota’s policy similar to the one in New York under which Trump is eligible: It restored voting rights to felons who had completed their prison sentences, rather than disenfranchising them until they completed parole or probation. Felons still lose their voting rights in Minnesota while they are incarcerated.
More than 20 states have policies similar to the ones in Minnesota and New York.
Florida’s laws are stricter: If it applied its own standards instead of New York’s standards to Trump, a sentence of parole or probation would disenfranchise him this November.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
