The latest salvo in President Donald Trump’s campaign against mail-in voting arrived Monday, as he announced he wants to “lead a movement” against mail ballots and advocate instead for in-person and paper ballots, which he says are “faster, and leaves NO DOUBT, at the end of the evening, as to who WON, and who LOST, the Election.”
Trump has criticized mail-in ballots since their rapid rise in 2020, when after years of slower growth they exploded as a key innovation of the Covid election. But the logistics of counting mail-in votes helped keep the nation in suspense over who won for nearly four days after polls closed.
This latest push by Trump may also have the convenience of being the latest line of attack in the redistricting wars. In California, state Democrats are attempting their own mid-decade gerrymander to counter the Trump-led push by Republicans to draw more friendly districts in Texas. And California sticks out as one of the most prominent embracers of mail-in voting — and among the slowest to count them.
Overall, mail-in voting accounted for 30% of the total vote nationwide in 2024, down from its 2020 peak of 43%. However, in California, the practice made up 81% of the total vote, according to a recent report from the Election Assistance Commission.
Mail-in voting overall has proved to be a challenging process for many election administrators, with hurdles including voter and ballot verification and logistical issues like opening envelopes, keeping materials secure and, in many cases, hand-counting. Essentially, all of the processes that happen in person when someone votes at a polling place — especially checking in and verifying their registration — can pile up fast when it happens by mail.
But California has had some of the greatest difficulties sorting through mail votes quickly. Of the states with the highest share of mail-in voting in the 2024 election, California set a benchmark for slowest progress the morning after the election.
While Democrats have achieved steady success at the statewide level in recent years, California’s prolonged vote counts left the nation in suspense over which party would win control of the House of Representatives for days after the 2022 and 2024 elections.
Northern California’s Lake County didn’t reach the halfway mark tabulating its 2024 election results until more than two weeks after election night. Responding to scrutiny, the elections supervisor complained, “Why do we need to rush?”
Following the election, state legislation was introduced requiring counties to conclude a majority of their counting process 13 days after the election. The bill passed the state Assembly with bipartisan support and is in a state Senate committee seeking funding sign-off.
Meanwhile, Trump faces high legal and political hurdles to changing mail-in laws on his own at the federal level. Without new federal laws, states have wide latitude to set their own election procedures. And his recent post may just have been top of mind for him because of a prompt from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But it’s also happening as California state legislators convened Monday to move forward on plans for a congressional map that, if approved by voters, would target five Republicans to lose their seats in the upcoming midterms. The effort was sparked by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom as a response to Texas Republicans’ congressional redraw seeking to fortify their majority.
It may put the redistricting wars and Trump’s renewed crusade on mail-in votes on a political collision course in the Golden State.
