Trump ramps up war on mail-in voting ahead of midterms

President Trump is ramping up his war on mail-in voting with a new attempt to reshape how elections are run ahead of this year’s high-stakes midterms.

Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order to limit mail-in ballots, mandating the creation of a list of eligible voters in each state and restricting absentee ballots to voters on said list. During the signing, he repeated his false allegations about widespread “cheating” through mail-in voting, after he voted by mail from his Mar-a-Lago resort in a Florida special election just last week.

The move drew swift pushback from election experts and Democratic officials who say the president lacks the authority. It’s the latest move in the president’s crackdown on mail ballots, which has ruffled even some Republicans as the party grapples with his sweeping plans to overhaul U.S. elections.

“If this actually happens, and I have to stress that it won’t, if the president’s executive order went into effect as described, particularly for the ‘26 elections, it would be chaos for Republicans,” said Justin Levitt, a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School.

Trump’s new order directs the U.S. Postal Service to send ballots only to eligible voters on a list to be drawn up by the Department of Homeland Security with help from the Social Security Administration. Approved mail-in ballot envelopes would also be equipped with unique barcodes for tracking, and states that don’t comply could see their federal funding withheld. 

Democratic leaders have ripped the move, which they argue would encroach upon states’ power over elections. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) called the order an “unlawful power grab,” while Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) pledged to “see you in court.” Democratic secretaries of state have offered similar rebukes. 

“The President’s latest Executive Order is another desperate, illegal power grab. The Constitution is clear: states run elections. We don’t need decrees from Washington D.C. My message to the President: we’ll see you in court,” Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read said in a post on the social platform X.

Oregon is one of eight states, plus Washington, D.C., that send all voters their ballots by mail automatically and without request. Twenty-eight states allow no-excuse absentee voting, meaning voters can request an absentee ballot, while the remaining states require an excuse to qualify.

Trump has long claimed, without evidence, that mail-in ballots and instances of immigrants without documentation voting contributed to widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election, which he lost against former President Biden. On Tuesday, he insisted that he won the White House “three times, convincingly.” 

Those claims have formed the backdrop for his calls to “nationalize” elections and for Congress to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, a Republican-backed bill that would require Americans to show proof of citizenship to register to vote and provide a valid ID in order to cast a ballot. He’s panned the practice in some states of allowing mail-in ballots to come in after Election Day, as long as they were postmarked in time.

Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ), meanwhile, has also demanded that states turn over voter data, raising election interference concerns. 

Republicans eager to align with the president have been largely supportive of Trump’s plans to overhaul elections, but his stance on voting by mail has put him at odds with some Republicans who hail from states where absentee voting is widespread and popular. 

If Trump’s order were to take effect, experts say it could sow chaos in GOP-led states as the party fights to keep control of Congress in the midterms. 

Some of these states have already pushed back against the DOJ’s push for voter roll access. Last month, Idaho, which has voted for Trump every time he’s been on the ballot, became the latest state to decline to share sensitive information with Washington.

The president cast a ballot by mail in a Florida special election as recently as last week. Asked why he’d taken part in a process he’s called “mail-in cheating,” Trump said it was “because I’m president of the United States.” He added that he “couldn’t be there, because I had a lot of different things.” 

Rick Hasen, an election law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, called the president a “total hypocrite” on voting by mail. 

“He says that it’s prone to fraud and yet he and his family use it regularly. It’s just a talking point. It’s not backed by reliable evidence,” Hasen told The Hill in an interview just before Trump’s Tuesday announcement. 

Karen Sebold, a political science professor at the University of Arkansas, described Trump’s policy views as “kind of fluid.”

“You might be with him one day and against him the next,” she said of the president’s approach to elections. 

In Arkansas, two candidates in a Tuesday GOP primary runoff for secretary of state underscored some of the conflicting views on election administration within the party. Both contenders for the state’s top elections official post touted their alignment with Trump but differed on their stance on paper ballots.

Bryan Norris, who lost to state Sen. Kim Hammer (R) Tuesday, advocated for paper ballots — a popular call among Trump and his allies amid their efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Hammer, meanwhile, spearheaded legislation seeking to place the financial burden of paper ballots on counties that elect to use the tabulation method.

“I think it makes it really hard for Republicans to strategize and figure out how to stick with [Trump], while also not being wishy-washy and going back and forth,” Sebold said. “This isn’t the playbook for how you win power and keep it.” 

Experts say Trump’s new executive order isn’t likely to survive legal challenges, however.

“It’s unconstitutional. The president doesn’t have any power to instruct the Postal Service on which mail to deliver and which mail not to deliver,” Levitt said. “He doesn’t have magical powers.” 

Trump signed a sweeping executive order last year targeting mail-in ballots, enforcing an Election Day receipt deadline in federal elections after years of unproven claims about mail-in voting fraud. A judge later halted enforcement of parts of that order. 

Even if the new order is defeated, experts say the move risks sowing confusion and distrust among voters.

“Elections are going on. We’ve had special elections. So, trying to do all of this leading up to the [midterm] election also just creates confusion, and it’s already tricky,” said Michael Hanmer, a University of Maryland political science professor with a focus on voting and elections.

The new order, which Hanmer said isn’t “realistic,” comes amid poor approval numbers for Trump — and as polls suggest Democrats have the midterm edge. 

“If, as any reasonable prediction would go for the midterm elections, especially when you factor in [Trump’s] current popularity or lack thereof, it’s looking pretty bad for Republicans,” he added. “And so this can be another excuse.” 

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