President Donald Trump said on Monday that he will sign an executive order before the 2026 midterms to “lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS” and replace voting machines with “watermark paper,” as well as pushing to eliminate the “Highly “Inaccurate,” Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES.”
“ELECTIONS CAN NEVER BE HONEST WITH MAIL IN BALLOTS/ VOTING, and everybody, IN PARTICULAR THE DEMOCRATS, KNOWS THIS,” Trump claims in a Truth Social post. “I, AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, WILL FIGHT LIKE HELL TO BRING HONESTY AND INTEGRITY BACK TO OUR ELECTIONS. THE MAIL-IN BALLOT HOAX, USING VOTING MACHINES THAT ARE A COMPLETE AND TOTAL DISASTER, MUST END, NOW!!!”
Fact-checking Trump
Trump’s post framed the states as “merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government” that must follow presidential directives on election administration.
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The Constitution says otherwise. States set the “Times, Places and Manner” of congressional elections, subject to regulation by Congress—not the president. Any federal attempt to dictate state-run processes by executive order will face immediate legal challenge.
Trump’s new push also repeats a false claim that the US is the “only Country in the World that uses Mail-In Voting.” Many democracies—from the UK and Germany to Australia and Switzerland—allow some form of voting by mail.
In addition, Trump also cited Russian President Vladimir Putin’s supposed agreement that mail voting enables fraud. Past reviews have found no evidence of widespread fraud tied to mail ballots.
The data also undercuts the premise. The US Election Assistance Commission’s 2024 survey shows about 30% of ballots were cast by mail, down from pandemic-era peaks, and more than 98% of jurisdictions used systems that mark a paper ballot or produce a paper record for audits.
This is not the first time Trump threatened to alter the voting system with an executive order. Earlier this year, Trump’s March 25 order sought, among other things, documentary proof-of-citizenship for federal voter registration and tighter rules on late-arriving mail ballots. Federal courts quickly blocked key provisions while litigation proceeds.
In practice, Trump and his household have relied on the very system he now seeks to end: he voted absentee in 2018 while still a New York voter. He then cast mail ballots in Florida for both the March 2020 presidential primary and the August 2020 statewide primary. He again requested and returned a mail-in ballot for Palm Beach’s March 2021 municipal election. In 2017, Melania Trump and Ivanka Trump’s NYC mayoral absentee ballots were rejected over errors, while Trump’s own NYC absentee application even listed the wrong birthdate.
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