He was sure only Democrats would vote by mail, and they wouldn't make it in on time due to DeJoy's meddling, and that he could easily discredit "late" ballots. The media conservatively delayed calling most projected winners, and Fox (intentionally or not) ran major interference by calling Arizona for Biden before anyone else did, which served as a huge distraction for tRump and solidified the "wait and see" perception election night.
He told his followers not to vote by mail because their intention was to challenge and throw out as many (Democratic-leaning) mail in ballots as possible. He didn't plan that states would be onto him, and the overwhelming number of mail-ins would still make it, and those aren't subject to hack by machine since they are handled individually.
And he's also just dumb in that the calls made on Election night are only projections based on historical statistics and math and that the actual ballots always take a week or more to actually count depending on the procedure in each state, longer this year due to high mail-in turnout.
He believed if the media called it that everyone would stop counting, or at least believe he was the winner and not pay any attention to the behind-the-scenes court madness. He also was likely under the impression that mail-in ballots were provisional and may or may not be counted based on how close the race is - much easier to discredit and throw out. I was actually confused until someone explained that mail-in ballots are not provisional. It's possible in years past, the mail-in ballot numbers actually were small enough that they wouldn't have been a factor to change the in-person numbers and may as have been handled as if they were provisional.
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