President Donald Trump on Monday railed against mail-in voting and vowed to “lead a movement” to eliminate the practice ahead of the 2026 midterms.
“ELECTIONS CAN NEVER BE HONEST WITH MAIL IN BALLOTS/VOTING, and everybody, IN PARTICULAR THE DEMOCRATS, KNOWS THIS,” he wrote on Truth Social. “I, AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, WILL FIGHT LIKE HELL TO BRING HONESTY AND INTEGRITY BACK TO OUR ELECTIONS.”
Trump has for years opposed mail-in ballots, insisting that they played a role in voter fraud he baselessly claims cost him the 2020 presidential election.
The president on Monday indicated he would sign an executive order to assist with the effort to roll back mail-in voting. He also said he would target voting machines, instead favoring watermark paper for ballots. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on what the order would entail.
“Now they need that money in order to have the Post Office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” the president said on Fox Business Network in a 2020 interview. “By the way, those are just two items, but if they don’t get those two items that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting.”
Historically, Democrats have returned more mail-in votes than Republicans, who more often vote in person. But the use of mail-in voting spiked dramatically during the 2020 election amid the Covid-19 pandemic and has remained higher in the subsequent elections.
In 2024, Trump’s campaign and the RNC disseminated information to help their base vote by mail despite Trump’s continued efforts to sow disdain for the practice.
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