Voting: Trump's ominous war on mail ballots

Now "the power-drunk president" is signaling that "his Big Lie isn't just about a past election but a pretext for what he could do to disrupt the next one."

(Image credit: Getty Images)

By The Week US

published 8 September 2025

"The big lie is back," said Jackie Calmes in the Los Angeles Times, and it's "coming for American elections." Declaring mail ballots "corrupt," President Trump vowed last month to issue an executive order to eliminate them to "help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm Elections." The Constitution clearly states that the "Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections...shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof." But Trump promised to "lead a movement" to ban mail voting—and "highly inaccurate" electronic voting machines. His eruption followed his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a "master manipulator" who assured his "useful idiot" he'd won big in 2020 but was robbed by mail-in voting fraud. Trump, of course, has always insisted he actually won that election, and tried to overturn it. Now "the power-drunk president" is signaling that "his Big Lie isn't just about a past election but a pretext for what he could do to disrupt the next one."

Trump's posturing is "unlikely to amount to much," said Aaron Blake in CNN.com. Trump claimed that states are "merely an 'agent' for the Federal Government" in elections, but that "rather novel take on the Constitution" would face immediate challenges if he tried to follow through. Besides, Republicans might not support Trump's war on voting by mail, said Naomi Lim in the Washington Examiner. Historically, Republicans have been more likely to vote by mail—a pattern reversed by the Covid pandemic in 2020. But since then, Republicans have successfully invested "time and money encouraging GOP voters" to cast ballots in this convenient way.

Trump's real goal isn't a ban on mail voting, said Jay Willis in Slate. This is all part of an ongoing GOP scheme "to frame election results it does not like as inherently illegitimate." The implications are ominous, said Barton Gellman in The New York Times. Trump is staking out "a fundamentally illegitimate claim to authority over the conduct of American elections." And it comes just as he's sent the National Guard to occupy Washington, D.C., and is threatening to do the same in other big Democratic cities. In 2026 and 2028, will Trump concoct some pretext to interfere with balloting in swing-state cities, send troops to intimidate voters in blue districts, and seize ballots he deems fraudulent? "The foundational mechanisms of our democracy may be in genuine danger."