By Steve Holland
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump voted in his new home state of Florida on Saturday, casting his ballot for his re-election at a public library across the street from one of his golf clubs.
Trump, wearing a mask to prevent the spread of coronavirus, voted using a paper ballot. Supporters gathered in the library parking lot chanted “four more years” as he voted inside.
“It was a very secure vote, much more secure than when you send in a ballot,” Trump said, repeating unfounded allegations that mail-in voting is more susceptible to fraud.
“I voted for a guy named Trump,” he said.
Trump’s stop at the voting location in West Palm Beach, Florida, was the first event in what will be a long day on the campaign trail with events in North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin.
Trump changed his residency from New York to Florida a year ago. In 2016, he and his wife, Melania, had voted at Public School 59 just a few blocks from Trump Tower in Manhattan. He voted by absentee ballot in the 2018 midterm elections, a White House spokesman said at the time.
His vote in Florida, a swing state, is about 5 miles from the oceanfront Mar-a-Lago club that is now his residence.
Trump had requested an absentee ballot but decided to vote in person.
“I like being able to vote. I’m old fashioned I guess,” Trump told thousands on Friday at a rally at The Villages, Florida.
(Reporting By Steve Holland; editing by Heather Timmons and Diane Craft)
