Trump reignites his push to ban mail-in voting

Post Reply New Topic

President Donald Trump said Monday that he will "lead a movement" to end mail-in balloting in elections. The Constitution, Congress and the states figure to have their say, too.

The issue has re-emerged as a fixation for Trump when the most pressing business before him is his effort to mediate a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine. It appears to have been rekindled, or at least stoked, by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who reinforced Trump's unsubstantiated view that postal ballots "rigged" the 2020 election, at a summit Friday in Alaska.

In an interview with Fox News host Bret Baier on Friday, Trump relayed that "one of the most interesting things" Putin told him during the summit had to do with the unreliability of mail-in voting.

"He said: 'Your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting. ... It’s impossible to have mail-in voting and have honest elections,’” Trump said, adding that Putin told him "no country" has mail-in voting.

It's false that the United States is the only country with vote-by-mail. Other countries, such as Canada and the United Kingdom, also do. Russia has been heavily criticized, including by the U.S. government, for not having free and fair elections.

Trump then vowed Monday on his Truth Social platform to issue an executive order aimed at banning vote-by-mail.

"Remember, the States are merely an 'agent' for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes," Trump wrote. "They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do."

He also brought it up when he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later in the day, saying "Mail-in ballots are corrupt."

But Trump faces high legal and political hurdles to changing the laws governing federal elections: the Constitution, federal and state statutes, the popularity of absentee balloting and the GOP's success in using mail-in votes in key swing states, such as Trump's home state, Florida.

The Constitution vests the power for choosing the "times, places and manner" of House and Senate elections in state legislatures, with Congress and the president retaining the right to pass laws overriding them. States also have the authority, under the Constitution, to determine how presidential electors are selected. Federal law requires states to accept mailed ballots from Americans living overseas, including veterans.

"I don’t want to presuppose what might be in the executive order, but I think it’s pretty clear that the times, places and manners of elections are set by the state. That’s right there in the Constitution," said Matt Weil, vice president of the democracy program at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank.

Changing those "requires an act of Congress," Weil said. And doing that would be no small feat when Democrats can block legislation in the Senate.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement, “Senate Democrats will make sure that any and every measure that would make it even more difficult for Americans to vote will be dead on arrival in the Senate and will continue to fight to protect our democracy."

The Republican National Committee hinted at the power of Congress in a statement Monday supporting Trump's plan.

“Under his leadership and direction, the RNC is continuing to build upon our historic election integrity efforts from the successful 2024 election cycle, and we will be ready to help implement any and all changes made to our nation’s election laws by the President and Congress," RNC spokesperson Kiersten Pels said. "The Republican Election Integrity motto is simple: we want to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat.”

Beyond those challenges, many Republicans say Trump is fishing in a politically toxic pond that is better left alone.

"From a pure tactics standpoint, it is not helpful," said a former Trump campaign official who is working on midterm campaigns.

In his failed 2020 re-election bid, Trump discouraged Republicans from voting early and as absentees, and many of his allies believe that cost him votes. By contrast, in 2024, his advisers persuaded him to embrace those practices on the premise that he could "bank" votes early and not have to spend money trying to mobilize people who had already cast ballots.

Trump's emerging push is destined to fail, the former campaign official said, and it could tamp down Republican turnout in the process.

"It discourages our use" of mail-in voting, which "is going to exist," he said, adding that "this is where he starts getting into conspiratorial spaces where independent voters are like 'What? What is he talking about?’”

Trump's White House recently hosted a group of secretaries of state to discuss "our ongoing commitment to election integrity," said Ben Kindel, a spokesperson for Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican.

Trump's aversion to absentee ballots is perhaps most striking because Republicans' recent success in Florida elections — in Trump's home state — has coincided with the state GOP's mastery of mail-in voting. White House chief of staff Susie Wiles has been a longtime proponent of early voting in the state and helped Trump see the benefit to him across swing states in 2024.

Wiles and several other White House officials did not respond to requests for comment.

In Florida, Trump’s push to crack down on mail ballots has hampered Republicans' decadeslong effort to build their mail programs. Since they began developing a mail-in program in the 1990s, Republicans in the state have dominated their Democratic counterparts using the method Trump detests.

But his message, that the practice is inherently corrupt, has altered the landscape in Florida, allowing Democrats to ramp up their efforts and, for the first time, take an edge in vote-by-mail ballots — even as Trump won the state in 2020 and 2024.

The slipping of Republicans voting-by-mail advantage has dismayed some of the state’s veteran Republicans.

Democrats responded harshly to Trump's Truth Social post, even as they waited to see the actual proposal. Connecticut Secretary of State Jena Griswold said she is ready to go to court to block him, if necessary.

Some Trump allies say no one should be surprised by his desire to stop mail-in balloting, as he has long decried the practice of voting in any way other than in person on Election Day.

"It’s the same position the president has always held," a person familiar with the Trump camp's thinking said. "That being said, if mail-in ballots still exist come 2026, we will use them and win.

We have two options: eliminate all barriers to voting, or start imprisoning conservatives.