Donald Trump, the US President who has recently rallied against voter fraud, tried to register to vote in a state while claiming his "legal residence" was in another, media reports say.
According to a review of electoral records by The Washington Post, a September 2019 Florida voter registration application lists his "legal residence" in Washington DC. He also said at the same time he was a "bona fide resident" of Palm Beach.
Under Florida law, to vote in the state, you must be a resident there and can be subject to fines or imprisonment if inaccurate information is provided.
The newspaper reports that a month later, Trump again applied, but put down his Mar-a-Lago resort address as his legal residence, allowing him to vote in this year's republican primary contest in the southern US state.
The Post says it's unclear what happened between the two applications and that it was possible election officials had flagged the DC address and asked for a clarification.
Trump's original application was made as he changed his permanent residence from his New York apartment to his resort Mar-a-Lago.
The Trump Organization and Florida electoral agencies didn't respond to requests for comment by The Post.
In recent months, Trump has aggressively criticised mail-in voting, which he said can be fraudulent, claiming that ballots are stolen from mailboxes and signatures are often forged. Calls have increased for greater mail-in voting options due to COVID-19.
"There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed," he tweeted last week. Many tweets of the President's tweets this year have focussed on these claims about mail-in voting.
The validity of his claims have been widely questioned. That tweet last week now has a warning attached to it from Twitter linking to threads discussing if his allegations can be substantiated.
CNN has also fact-checked many of Trump's claims, noting the processes in place to stop mail-in ballots being fixed or changed. For example, about a third of states verify signatures, according to the outlet, and barcodes on ballot envelopes allow voters to track their ballots and ensure they aren't being duplicated. The outlet said mail-in fraud does happen but it is "rare".
