President Donald Trump is seeking a major change to how Americans can vote ahead of the 2026 midterms.
In a lengthy Truth Social post on Monday, the president announced a new election integrity effort centered around eliminating mail-in ballots and certain kinds of voting machines.
“I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS,” he wrote, in part. “And also, while we’re at it, Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES, which cost Ten Times more than accurate and sophisticated Watermark Paper, which is faster, and leaves NO DOUBT, at the end of the evening, as to who WON, and who LOST, the Election.”
History of Voting by Mail
As reported on Tuesday’s AM Update, mail-in ballots became a flashpoint during the 2020 election, as many states reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic by expanding mail-in ballot and absentee voting access.
In some states, those rapid changes to the electoral process were accompanied by reports of voters receiving multiple ballots, ballots sent to the wrong addresses, ballots left in unsecured ballot boxes, and more. That has fueled an ongoing debate about security, oversight, and integrity of the system.
Most states have since reverted back to pre-pandemic policies, though some leaned into the mail-based election systems. According to the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), an organization that provides research and policy support, five states conducted elections almost entirely by mail at the start of 2020. That number increased to eight by the 2022 midterm election, with California, Nevada, and Vermont joining Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. All but Utah went blue in the 2020 election.
A June report by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission submitted to Congress stated “mail voting comprised 30.3 percent of the turnout for the 2024 election, which is down from the high water mark for mail voting seen in 2020 (43 percent) but still larger than the percentage of the electorate that voted by mail in pre-pandemic elections.”
Trump’s Plan
President Trump said he plans to sign an executive order to bring “honesty and integrity” to the 2026 midterm elections, though the timeline and more details on what the order will entail are unclear.
While voting policies differ from state to state, Trump said he has the power to intervene because “the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes” and “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.”
This effort comes on the heels of a March executive order that sought to require proof of citizenship to vote, ban the counting of ballots received after election day, and add more federal oversight of state voter rules. The order threatened to withhold federal election funding to non-compliant states, but many of the provisions were blocked by multiple judges in several lawsuits.
Speaking from the Oval Office Monday, the president suggested White House lawyers are adapting to the legal challenges resulting from that March EO. “We’re going to start with an executive order that’s being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail-in ballots because they’re corrupt,” he told reporters. “And we’re going to end mail-in voting. It’s a fraud.”
Trump then referenced former President Jimmy Carter’s 2005 bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform. “Even Jimmy Carter with his commission, they set it up, he said the one thing about mail-in voting, you will never have an honest election if you have mail-in,” he said. “And it’s time that the Republicans get tough and stop it because the Democrats want it. It’s the only way they can get elected.”
The committee’s report stated that while “the commission is divided on the magnitude of voter fraud, with some believing the problem is widespread and others believing that it is minor, there is no doubt that it occurs. Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.”
The commission also found voting via mail-in ballot “raises concerns about privacy, as citizens voting at home may come under pressure to vote for certain candidates, and it increases the risk of fraud.”
Recent Controversy
President Trump’s campaign to eliminate mail-in ballots may be bolstered by a string of recent indictments tied to absentee ballot and vote by mail fraud.
Last month in South Texas, a grand jury indicted 15 suspects, including the former chair of the Bexar County Democratic Party, in a vote harvesting probe led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton tied to a 2024 state House campaign. In February, five people in Connecticut, including Democrat political operatives, were indicted on ballot tampering allegations regarding a 2023 local election.
As with the March executive order, any move President Trump makes on election integrity is almost certain to face immediate legal challenges. That would set up yet another courtroom battle ahead of the 2026 midterms.
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