Can Trump really ban mail-in voting?

President Donald Trump plans to use his office to try to get rid of voting ballots by mail before the elections in 2026 for the House of Representatives and the Senate.

“A decree is currently written by the best lawyers in the country to end the voting ballots by mail because they are corrupt,” he said in an article on social networks this week.

During a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Monday, Trump also showed a political motivation, saying that mail voting is “the only means” Democrats “can be elected”. “”

The postal bulletins, in part, helped Trump win his victory in 2024 against Democrat Kamala Harris. But he said, without proof, that he had lost the elections in 2020 due to the electoral fraud perpetrated by voting ballots by mail and voting machines.

Voting by mail allows voters to vote at home, then send them, instead of going in person to vote in a polling station.

Eight states and Washington, DC, allow all elections to take place entirely by mail: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington State.

Among these, only two – Nevada and Utah – went to Trump in 2024.

In most other states, voters can request voting ballots at home, then vote their “absent votes” by the post or special dropboxes.

Postal bulletins became more popular in the 2020 elections when many voters were confined to the house due to the pandemic.

In total, 43% of the votes expressed in this election were on post -post voting ballots, compared to 30% in 2024, according to electoral data.

The expression “voting machines” generally refers to the devices which directly record a vote in the polling station. As a rule, a voter will make its choices on a touch screen, and their votes will then be stored on a computer and also recorded in a paper track in the event of a recount or audit. These machines are used in 10 states alongside other methods.

Trump said that “postal bulletins are corrupt” and have long suggested that the method is sensitive to electoral fraud. He also said that he promotes Democrats.

Since 2020, democratic voters have been much more likely to use ballots by mail, compared to the Republicans, but research so far has not shown that this gives the party candidates.

During the 2024 elections, Trump seemed more relaxed about the vote sent by post, encouraging supporters to “vote anyway”, and the republican party promoted it.

At least three states that Trump won in 2024 – North Carolina, Arizona and Pennsylvania – have seen the Republicans kissing postal bulletins, sometimes going beyond Democrats, according to Politico.

In short, no.

The American constitution indicates that “the times, the places and the way of holding elections … will be prescribed in each state by the legislator of the latter”.

He says that Congress has a role in “doing or modifying such regulations”, but it does not specify a role for the president.

Although the congress can change the way states organize presidential elections and congresses, it cannot change how a state directs its own elections, for roles such as the governor.

Most experts say it means Trump cannot tell states how to vote in 2026.

Trump, however, posted on social networks that, under the law, states “are only 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, for the good of our country,” he wrote on his social platform Truth.

UCLA electoral law professor Rick Hasen wrote on his blog that Trump’s statement was “false and dangerous”.

“The Constitution does not give the president of control over the federal elections,” wrote Hasen.

The United States has had a certain form of postal vote since the 19th century, although it has evolved and changed over time.

By announcing his upcoming decree, Trump said that the United States was the only country in the world to vote by post.

A few moments later, he delivered these remarks, saying that he “may be wrong”.

According to the International Institute of Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDE Idectation).

Among these, 12 countries, including Canada, Germany and South Korea, allow all voters to vote by mail during their elections.