Trump Pushes Again To End Mail-In Voting After Putin Meeting
Donald Trump Pushes Again To End Mail-In Voting After Putin Meeting
Donald Trump is once again trying to cheat his way into forced royalty, this time by pledging to eliminate mail-in voting nationwide.
On Monday, following his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, Trump announced on Truth Social that he plans to “lead a movement” to get rid of mail-in ballots and voting machines in the country ahead of next year’s midterm elections, a plan he doubled down on later that day during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House, despite having no constitutional authority nor reason to do so.
“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,” Trump said at the White House. “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.”
Trump’s latest announcement was seemingly sparked by none other than Vladimir Putin, who according to Trump during an interview with Fox News host Bret Baier, told the disgraced president “one of the most interesting things,” saying that America’s 2020 election was “rigged” because of mail-in voting. “It’s impossible to have mail-in voting and have honest elections,” Trump quoted Putin as saying, before adding that “no country” uses the practice.
That statement is, of course, a blatant lie. Data compiled by a Sweden-based organization that advocates for democracy globally found in an October 2024 report found that 34 countries or territories allow mail-in voting, which it refers to as “postal voting,” with the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance finding that 12 allow all voters to vote by mail and in 22 permit only some voters to vote this way.
The irony is staggering; Putin, the leader of a country condemned globally for staging sham elections, is now dictating America’s democratic playbook to its own president.
Although Trump himself urged his supporters to vote using mail-in ballots prior to the 2024 presidential election, Democrats have been significantly more likely to vote using mail-in ballots, compared to Republicans, since the 2020 election. Studies reveal that the gap has only gotten wider in recent elections as GOP-led states continue to pass more restrictions on this method of voting, making it harder to comply; but legal experts say Trump does not have the legal authority to tell states how to run their elections.
The Constitution gives power to state legislatures to determine the “times, places and manner” of holding elections, subject to acts of Congress that regulate the process.
Despite the issues surrounding legality, Trump continued the misinformation on his Truth Social platform, promising an executive order to ban mail-in voting and declaring that states “must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the president, tells them.”
“Remember, the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. 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,” Trump wrote.
But Trump’s words are less about legality than about intimidation. By repeatedly branding mail ballots “corrupt,” he sows distrust in elections and sets the stage to challenge results if they do not favor him. This is the same tactic he used in 2020 when he falsely claimed widespread fraud—rhetoric that fueled the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Trump also shed insight as to why mail-in ballots are on his radar after telling Fox News that he spoke about the U.S. voting method with Vladimir Putin, when the two met in Anchorage, Alaska, last week. Putin reportedly claimed that Russia’s war on Ukraine wouldn’t have happened if Trump had been president, which is seemingly false when the war has been ongoing since 2014.
“Vladimir Putin, smart guy, said you can’t have an honest election with mail-in voting,” Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity in an interview after Friday’s summit.
Democrats swiftly condemned Trump’s renewed assault on voting rights, with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer vowing that any such measure would be “dead on arrival” in the Senate.
“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,” Chuck Schumer said in a statement.
State officials were equally forceful as Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read, whose state conducts elections entirely by mail, lambasted Trump’s proposal as a direct threat, saying:
“Abandoning this trusted system for one man’s political ambitions is un-American, unconstitutional, and unacceptable. We do not cancel elections. We do not silence voters. And we do not let personal grievances undermine democracy.”
Oregon and Washington have long used vote-by-mail in elections with no widespread evidence of fraud. The states each began tests of mail-in ballots in the 1980s before later adopting them statewide.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes also joined the resistance, saying:
“Despite what Putin apparently whispered into President Trump’s ears, our vote-by-mail elections are secure and accurate. Voter fraud is extremely rare, and it’s never changed the outcome of an election,” Read said. “Stopping this system would disproportionately impact rural and elderly voters, because mail-in voting meets citizens exactly where they are, in their living rooms, around their kitchen tables. It would force elections offices to hire poll workers and prompt people to seek child care or take time off work to vote.”
Even within the GOP, many see Trump’s crusade as his own political goal. Mail-in ballots have historically been a Republican strength, particularly in Florida, where the state GOP built a powerful vote-by-mail operation in the 1990s, but Trump’s repeated attacks have eroded that advantage, giving Democrats an opening.
“There was a time when Republicans owned and relied on voting by mail,” said longtime Florida operative Mac Stipanovich, who helped design the program. “Now, Trump has turned voter suppression into party dogma, at the expense of his own side.”
Strategists warn that discouraging absentee ballots will depress Republican turnout in swing states. “From a pure tactics standpoint, it is not helpful,” admitted a former Trump campaign official. “This is where he starts getting into conspiratorial spaces where independent voters are like, ‘What is he talking about?’”
Election experts say Trump’s executive order is unlikely to survive court challenges, but the broader goal is more insidious: destabilizing American faith in elections altogether.
Trump’s pledge to end mail-in voting, spurred by Putin’s counsel, is less about election integrity and more about engineering conditions for an illegal and unconstitutional third term and consolidating power. By suppressing access to the ballot, delegitimizing results, and demanding loyalty over law, Trump continues to chip away at the democratic infrastructure that is the foundation of this nation.
For Americans, the danger is not just in whether Trump succeeds legally—he definitely won’t—but with every loss is the normalization of authoritarian rhetoric. Each falsehood, each unconstitutional proposal, primes his base for a world where elections and facts only count if he wins; and that is how democracies die—not with a single coup, but with the steady erosion of trust, led by a lap dog taking notes from Russia.
Trump’s obsession with undermining the very electoral systems that have kept him in power reveals that we are truly heading down a dangerous path toward solidifying authoritarian control.
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Donald Trump Pushes Again To End Mail-In Voting After Putin Meeting was originally published on newsone.com
