Fact-checking Trump’s latest claims about mail ballots and voting machines

The president, entering Vladimir Putin’s assertions, promises to “lead a movement” for the paper ballots. But his powers are limited.

By Jessica Huseman for the voting

President Donald Trump returned to social media on Monday with another dam of declarations not based on the integrity of the elections, following a meeting during which Russian president Vladimir Putin would have said that the US elections were “rigged” due to the vote by mail.

Enter this assertion – although there is no credible proof to support it – Trump promised on Truth Social to “direct a movement” to eliminate ballots by mail and voting machines and promote the “watermark paper”. He suggested that he would implement these changes with an executive decree before the middle of 2026.

The position contains many other false, deceptive or uninformed statements on the use of mail voting bulletins, including the claims that Trump and his allies have already made – even if more and more Republican officials have tried to encourage voting by mail.

Despite his complaints, the courts have repeatedly rejected generalized fraud allegations linked to voting ballots by mail, and many democracies around the world use them. And under the Constitution, he has no explicit authority on “time, place and the manner” of the elections. Experts say that an executive decree like the one that Trump describes in his post would be immediately disputed in court and unlikely to take effect.

Beyond that, any major change in mail voting before the middle of 2026 would be a logistics nightmare for the administrators of the elections, and this would disproportionately affect voters who count the most, including soldiers abroad, veterans and disabled people.

Here is a verification of the facts of some of the key demands of his post.

What Trump said:

“States are just a” agent “for the federal government to count and tabulate votes. They must do what the federal government, represented by the President of the United States, told them. ”

Do:

Trump’s assertion that states are “simply an agent” of the federal government in the elections is false, and unlike the decades of republican orthodoxy on this point.

The Constitution gives power to Congress and States – not to the President – to the States to regulate the time, the way and the place of the elections.

Meanwhile, the Republicans for decades have developed the rights of states as a fundamental principle. This dates back to Barry Goldwater in the 1960s, thanks to the accent put by Ronald Reagan on “federalism” and in the last decades where the leaders of the GOP have supervised the decentralization of power as protection against the “great government”.

Related | Discover Trump’s new stupid plan to fake the elections

Voting was a main example for this point.

For example, after the 2000 disputed presidential election, the Republicans fiercely defended Florida’s law to establish its own recount rules. The leaders of the GOP and the prosecutors general argued in the Supreme Court case Shelby County v. Holder (2013) that the federal surveillance of state electoral laws was unconstitutional. Over the past decade, the Congress Republicans have opposed democratic efforts to adopt federal law on voting rights such as the law for the population and the John Lewis voting rights, arguing that they represented the “federal curats” of the elections. The head of the Senate minority, Mitch McConnell, in 2019, described the legislation to rewrite partisan in one size by one side here in Washington. “”

In 2020, when the Democrats proposed federal requirements to extend the vote by mail due to COVID-19, the Republicans defeated them. And when Trump launched the idea of ​​delaying the November elections, republican senators like McConnell, Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio reminded him that Congress and States control the calendar and election procedures.

What Trump said:

“We are now the only country in the world that uses postal voting. All the others abandoned her because of the fraud of massive voters encountered ”

Do:

Many democracies use voting by mail, including Germany, Switzerland, Canada and Australia. Some use it more broadly than the United States, no country has “abandoned” it due to generalized fraud. Fraud is rare in countries that use voting by mail, as it is here.

Germany has been using voting by mail since the 1950s; During his federal elections in 2021, about half of the German voters voted by post. In Switzerland, almost all voters receive their voting ballots by mail, and more than 70% of voters refer them in the same way. The United Kingdom allows all voters to request a post voting bulletin and around 20% of voters benefit from the policy. The vast majority of European countries allow at least one form of voting by mail, in particular for citizens living abroad or for people with disabilities.

What Trump said:

The voting machines are “very” inaccurate, very expensive and serious “and” cost more than precise and sophisticated tedious paper, which is faster, and leaves no doubt, at the end of the evening, as to which has won and who lost the elections. »»

Do:

Paper voting bulletins must still be counted – either by hand (which is slow and subject to errors), or by machine. This is why almost all states that use paper ballots are always based on scanners to count them quickly and precisely.

The existing federal law also requires the use of at least one voting machine in each district of the country, for use by voters who have disabilities that make voting in paper difficult. Trump cannot invalidate federal law through a decree, so voting machines are not going.

Filigranes are not a standard or proven backup, although some states have it (or something like them). The places that use them always use machines to count these ballots.

What Trump said:

“Democrats are practically without electable without using this scam by post completely refuted. The elections can never be honest with mail in the ballots / voting, and everyone, in particular the Democrats, knows. ”

Do:

There is no evidence that a “cheating” part with ballots by mail. Voting by mail is used by the Republicans and Democrats, and in the courts led by the Republicans and the Democrats. In fact, republican voters are often more likely to use voting by mail, especially in states such as Arizona and Florida, where Republicans have defended practice until recently. In fact, there is no evidence that voting services by mail by the party among the other – multiple academic studies have reached this conclusion.

What Trump said:

“Elections can never be honest with mail in ballot / vote.”

Do:

It has been constantly shown that mail voting was extremely safe due to robust guarantees. In states like Pennsylvania, counties which offer a hardening of voting bulletins – the ability to correct errors such as missing signatures – signal significantly lower rejection rates, demonstrating that the system is not rigged, but is rather reactive and adaptable.

The voting coverage underlines what research studies have shown several times: cases of fraud in the postal vote remain extremely rare. Even when the ballots are rejected, this is generally due to procedural errors – and not attempts to handle or deception. Elections administrators across the country work under strict and bipartite protocols, including signature checks and secure processing procedures to protect integrity. The courts and electoral officials regularly claim the reliability of the ballots by mail when these protocols are followed. Both in routine practice and under an in -depth examination, postal vote is distinguished both as secure and trustworthy.

What Trump said:

“I’m going to lead a movement to get rid of sending ballots … by signing a decree to help bring honesty in the mid-term elections of 2026.”

Do:

The courts have judged that Trump does not have the power to unilaterally modify the federal electoral rules, because they consider several proceedings disputing his decree of March.

By interrupting certain provisions of this decree, for example, a federal judge of the American district court of the Columbia district wrote in April that “our Constitution confides in the Congress and the States – not the President – with the power to regulate the federal elections”. This decision blocked Trump’s management at the US commission for election aid to take action to demand that the voters prove citizenship when registering to vote.

A Federal Massachusetts judge then blocked the same provision of the order, writing that Trump exceeded his authority. This judge also blocked parties of the ordinance indicating to the United States Ministry of Justice to enforce a deadline for receipt of ballot of the ballot day.

However, nothing prevents Trump from leading an informal movement. He has probably been doing it for years already, and even if it has had an impact on politics, voters have not really changed their habits much.