Donald Trump announced on Monday that he plans to sign an executive order to end mail-in voting and voting machines in a new challenge to the electoral system following alleged fraud threats, which have been denied at all levels, in Joe Biden’s sweeping victory in the 2020 presidential elections.
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Since then, the Republican led various campaigns to prevent the Democratic candidate from taking office and these fraud accusations were part of the violent incidents to take over Congress on January 6, 2021.
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Why does Trump want to eliminate mail-in voting?
“I am going to lead a movement to eliminate mail-in ballots and also voting machines, which are extremely inaccurate, very expensive, and very controversial,” Trump said in a message posted on Truth Social.
The president stated that this measure will allow to restore “honesty” and “integrity” in the face of the 2026 legislative elections despite the “opposition of the Democrats”, whom he accused again without evidence of “cheating” with this voting method that, he claims, “only” the United States uses.
“Trump commented that the deception of mail-in voting, which uses voting machines that are a complete and total disaster, must end now,” adding that many countries have eliminated this method due to, according to him, the “enormous electoral fraud detected.”
In an interview with Fox News, after meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, Trump commented that “one of the most interesting” things Putin talked about was the unreliability of mail-in voting. “He told me that ‘it is impossible to have mail-in voting and have honest elections’” and according to the Russian leader, “no country” has mail-in voting.
According to CNN, there are many countries with mail-in voting, including Canada, Australia, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Additionally, this mechanism is important in Republican states like Florida and did not prevent Trump’s landslide victory over Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential elections.
In response, the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, said that Trump “smells of desperation.” “Trump knows he’s going to lose in 2026. His plan to manipulate new seats in Congress is going to backfire,” said the Democrat.
Attempts to change electoral maps
This is not the only strategy Trump is using to avoid defeat in the 2026 legislative elections, where the House of Representatives is completely renewed.
Additionally, with his approval, Governor Greg Abbott and the Republicans in the state of Texas are seeking to redefine the electoral maps off schedule in an attempt to win five more seats in the House of Representatives ahead of next year’s elections, an initiative that has forced Democrats to do the same in the state of California.
The tactic, known as “gerrymandering,” allows for concentrating a larger number of voters in a specific district to harm the opponent. Currently, the Republicans hold 219 seats in the House of Representatives compared to the Democrats’ 212. In total, there are four vacant seats.
Trump, who has not presented any evidence to support his claims about mail-in voting, continues to insist that he was a victim of electoral fraud in the 2020 presidential elections against Biden, although all his complaints have been dismissed due to lack of evidence to prove it.
A federal court temporarily suspended last June part of a Republican executive order that substantially modified the voter registration process and the mail-in voting system. The U.S. president demanded that a voter provide written documentation of citizenship as a prerequisite for registration in the voting system and also called for the invalidation of any mail-in vote that arrived after the polls closed.
Beyond the executive order that Trump plans to sign, it is the states that define the ways in which national congressional votes are carried out.