Trump says he wants to get rid of mail in voting

President Trump’s back-and-forth relationship with mail-in voting has taken its latest turn, with the President again lambasting the practice and suggesting that he will push to alter balloting decisions traditionally left up to states ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

“I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS,” Trump posted on his social-media platform Monday. “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.”

Trump pledged to sign an executive order to “help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm Elections.” It’s his latest move to try to place his imprint on next year’s balloting, elections that traditionally favor the party that doesn’t hold the White House.

Trump has for years opposed mail-in ballots, saying that they played a role in voter fraud that he claims cost him the 2020 election. Mr. Trump on Monday indicated he would sign an executive order to assist with the effort to roll back mail-in voting. He also said he would target voting machines, instead favoring watermark paper for ballots.

“Now they need that money in order to have the Post Office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” the president said on Fox Business Network in a 2020 interview. “By the way, those are just two items, but if they don’t get those two items that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting.”

In response to a request for comment on what the executive order would entail, Harrison Fields, special assistant to the president and principal deputy press secretary, said Democrats have “eroded faith in our elections.”

“President Trump wants to secure America’s elections and protect the vote, restoring the integrity of our elections by requiring voter ID, ensuring no illegal ballots are cast, and preventing cheating through lax and incompetent voting laws in states like California and New York,” Fields said.

While there are some measures that can be taken to entice states to have less mail in voting, at the moment it look unlikely that ending mail in voting entirely will happen anytime soon, if ever.