U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Wednesday she wants to virus-proof the November election by including funding to boost voting by mail in the next pandemic response plan being put together by Democrats in the House of Representatives.
Freddie Joyner has more.
The rapid spread of the coronavirus throughout the U.S. over the past few weeks have completely turned the 2020 presidential primaries upside down, forcing many states in the nation to push back their primaries for months.
House Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are now trying to virus-proof the general election in November by including funding to boost voting by mail in the next pandemic response plan.
Pelosi on Wednesday proposed that at least $2 billion, and ideally $4 billion would be needed to enable voting by mail for November's Election.
This, she says, would give citizens a safe way to vote amid the coronavirus outbreak, which has killed more than 4,500 people across the United States.
The president and other Republicans are against this plan.
(UPSOUND)(ENGLISH) U.S. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP, SAYING: "I've never signed anything with a "T"on it." $400 million dollars were allocated in the first stimulus plan signed by Trump on Friday, funds that were intended to help state and local officials bolster vote by mail and early voting, expand facilities and hire more poll workers.
But on Monday Trump said voting by mail would hurt the Republican Party, complaining on Fox & Friends that Democrats wanted "levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.” Pelosi rejected that argument.
Democrats say more money is needed to prepare states for a possible surge in voting by mail in the fall, as millions of voters are set to choose the nation's next president on November 3rd.