President Donald Trump says he wants to do away with mail-in ballots. Those inside his own fiercely loyal political party aren’t so sure that’s a good idea.
Earlier this month, Trump continued his long-running criticism of voting by mail, falsely claiming that the United States is the only country that allows such a method and calling the practice “corrupt.”
“Your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting,” Trump — quoting advice he said he received from Russian President Vladimir Putin — said in a recent interview with Fox News. “It’s impossible to have mail-in voting and have honest elections.”
In social media posts this month, including one late Saturday, Trump indicated that he could act unilaterally and abolish mail-in balloting through an executive order ahead of the 2026 midterms. It’s a method of voting that accounted for 30% of all votes cast during the 2024 general election, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, an independent and bipartisan government group.
Voter turnout by mail exceeded 30% in at least 14 states and the District of Columbia, according to the most recent data available. Trump won half of those states, most of which have Republican governors or secretaries of state overseeing elections. Others, like Arizona and Michigan, have Democrats overseeing elections but are major electoral battlegrounds.
“My view on vote-by-mail is that I think it should be permissible,” Michigan state House Majority Leader Bryan Posthumus, a Republican who endorsed Trump last year, said in an interview with NBC News. “But I also believe that currently, the way it exists, specifically in Michigan, it is the highest risk for fraud.”
Posthumus’ perspective was echoed by nearly a dozen other GOP officials across the country who sympathized with Trump’s grievances and agreed that changes to mail-in balloting are necessary. But they question whether Trump could — or should — legally enact a ban. Some also worry a ban could create issues for members of the military who vote overseas and for Republican candidates in states where voting by mail is popular.
“As Trump often does, sometimes he overstates his case,” said Paul Dame, chair of the Vermont Republican Party. “I don’t think anyone supports a complete elimination. That would disenfranchise men and women overseas. I’m sure that’s not his intention.”
An executive order? ‘I don’t know’
Though Vermont heavily supported Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris last year, more voters there backed Trump in 2024 than in his previous two White House bids, and the state is one of just eight states that automatically sends a mail ballot to all qualified voters. That’s where Dame says improvements could be made in his state and others heavily reliant on mail-in ballots.
“A ballot goes out to every address, not every person,” he said. “There may or may not be a person who lives at that address. We need to have a clean list.”
In Michigan, Posthumus has proposed amending the state constitution to require proof of citizenship to register to vote and a photo ID to cast a ballot.
“We shouldn’t just go off and get rid of voting by mail,” Posthumus said. “We need to buckle down and secure the weakness and vulnerability in it. … I’ve always been a proponent that it should be easy to vote and hard to cheat. As long as our vote-by-mail systems are secure, then the access to the ballot box that it allows for is a good thing.”
Jim Runestad, a Michigan state senator who also serves as the state’s GOP chair, said he hadn’t “drilled down into” Trump’s posts on voting by mail but believes the president’s push, broadly, is “legitimate.”
“You have a lot more potential for fraud when you’re not voting on Election Day, in person,” he added. “That’s the safest way to do it.”
But if Trump were to sign an executive order banning mail-in voting, plenty of political and legal issues would remain. The Constitution gives the right to each state to determine the “times, places, and manner” of House and Senate elections.
“Whether he can do this by executive order, I don’t know,” Runestad said. “What the potential legal hurdles are to that, I don’t know. But I know that by far the safest voting is in person, with ID.”
The president and Congress can pass laws that would override those state-level election laws, but that would be a heavy political lift for Trump and his allies, particularly in the Senate, where Democrats can block legislation.
“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,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement responding to Trump’s threat to do away with mail-in voting.
‘What are you going to do about our military?’
In South Dakota, another state with a high vote-by-mail turnout, GOP Chair Jim Eschenbaum also expressed concern that a ban could unfairly disenfranchise military personnel.
“We can’t get rid of vote by mail because we’ve got military serving, and if anybody deserves a vote in our elections, it’s the people that are willing to die for us,” Eschenbaum said. “So we can’t ban it, but I think it should be limited in the respect that it is somewhat ripe for fraud.”
Eschenbaum said he believes the White House “certainly” can dictate election policy for federal elections, but “I would express my concerns to President Trump and ask him, ‘What are you gonna do about our military?’”
The White House did not respond to a request to comment. Trump expressed support late Saturday on Truth Social for exempting the military from any ban.
“Voter I.D. Must Be Part of Every Single Vote,” Trump wrote. “NO EXCEPTIONS! I Will Be Doing An Executive Order To That End!!! Also, No Mail-In Voting, Except For Those That Are Very Ill, And The Far Away Military. USE PAPER BALLOTS ONLY!!!”
William Feely, an RNC committeeman from Nebraska, was more open to backing Trump’s call for a ban.
“While Nebraska boasts high participation in mail-in ballots, this does not render us immune to vulnerabilities [that] can be exploited,” Feely wrote in an email. “Under President Trump’s leadership, the RNC is dedicated to building upon our successful election integrity efforts from the 2024 election cycle. We stand ready to support any and all changes to our nation’s election laws as directed by the President and Congress.”
Over the years, Trump has beat the drum against mail-in voting, but there is little evidence that the practice is plagued with fraud, and there are safeguards that already exist to protect against misuse.
“Before they are counted, election officials vigorously verify the validity of every mail ballot submission, as explained below,” the Bipartisan Policy Center says. “Mail ballots suspected of fraudulent activity are set aside for further investigation and, when appropriate, are referred to law enforcement for prosecution.”
A database maintained by the conservative Heritage Foundation that tracks election fraud cases includes 217 total criminal convictions for election-related fraud between 2020 and 2025. Those figures include all types of violations, not just those related to mail-in ballots.
Despite little hard evidence that rampant voter fraud exists in any form of voting, the idea of “election integrity” has remained the biggest selling point for Trump as he has pushed for sweeping legal reforms and continues to baselessly claim fraud is what cost him the 2020 presidential election.
“WE WILL BEGIN THIS EFFORT, WHICH WILL BE STRONGLY OPPOSED BY THE DEMOCRATS BECAUSE THEY CHEAT AT LEVELS NEVER SEEN BEFORE, by signing an EXECUTIVE ORDER to help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm Elections,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Aug. 18, following his meeting with Putin.
He issued a follow-up post this week: “Republicans: BAN MAIL-IN VOTING!!!”
Trump maintains that voting by mail is used by Democrats to cheat during elections and “steal” races from Republicans, even as Republicans in some states have benefited greatly from the process.
In Ohio, where Trump has won by comfortable margins three times and where the GOP has dominated elections for statewide office for two decades, Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose has presided over a system that produces few cases of fraud.
After Trump’s post about a vote-by-mail ban last week, LaRose spokesperson Ben Kindel said the secretary of state, who won re-election with Trump’s endorsement, was “willing to discuss opportunities for improvement.
Kindel also underscored who has the power to institute a ban.
“Changes to Ohio’s voting process require a vote of the General Assembly, so I’m sure we’ll be talking with them as well,” Kindel said.
