President Donald Trump says he wants to end mail-in voting, but voting by mail is already widespread throughout the United States, and he lacks the authority to end a practice that is left up to states to decide.
Nearly 30% of Americans who voted in the 2024 presidential election used a mail-in ballot, according to a USA TODAY analysis of data from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. That’s an increase from just under 24% in 2016. Trump won in both years.
Trump said in a Fox News interview Aug. 15, three days before promising to end mail-in balloting by executive order, that Russian President Vladimir Putin told him during their meeting, “Your election was rigged because you have mail in voting. … It's impossible to have mail-in voting and have honest elections.”
Bernard Fraga, a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta, called mail-in voting “extremely secure” and said “only a tiny, tiny fraction of ballots cast are even suspected of being somehow invalid.”
“National polling indicates that mail-in voting is broadly popular, is seen as generally safe and secure,” Fraga said. He pointed to a steady increase in mail-in ballots in the 10 years before it peaked in 2020.
