President Donald Trump on Monday pledged new changes to the nation’s election system, promising to eliminate mail voting and voting machines, though the Constitution gives the president little authority over how elections are conducted.
In a post on his social media site, Trump said he intends to issue another executive order “to help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm elections.” He has previously directed his administration to explore measures such as requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration.
The remarks repeat claims of widespread election fraud that Trump has promoted since his 2020 loss, though numerous reviews, audits, and court rulings have found no evidence of significant irregularities. An Associated Press investigation after the 2020 election identified fewer than 475 potential fraud cases in six battleground states—far below the margin needed to alter results.
Trump also claimed that the United States is the only country that uses mail voting, though nations such as Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom have long employed it. Mail balloting remains common in the U.S. and is used by about one-third of voters.
On voting machines, Trump argued for replacing them with paper ballots featuring watermarks. Election experts note that most Americans already vote on paper ballots, which provide a paper trail for audits, while watermarks alone cannot substitute for tabulating machines.
Legal experts emphasize that elections in the U.S. are run by states and local jurisdictions, with Congress having the authority to set federal election rules. The Constitution does not grant the president any direct role. Courts have already blocked parts of Trump’s earlier executive order on elections, ruling that only Congress can establish national standards.
“It’s very limited to zero authority that the president has over election conduct,” said Rick Hasen, a UCLA election law professor.
Trump’s comments came after a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office and shortly after he told Fox News that Russian President Vladimir Putin had echoed his concerns about U.S. voting practices during their meeting in Alaska.
Even with Republican control of Congress, major changes such as eliminating voting machines or mail voting face steep hurdles. Many GOP-led states—including Arizona, Florida and Utah—rely on mail ballots, and military personnel stationed overseas also vote by mail.
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2 Responses
Quiet! Genuis from the stable at work.
The only Federal election is for President – and most of the those allowed to vote (electors chosen in state elections) do so in person, usually in a chamber of the state legislature as they are usually on recess in December. Everything other elected office in the United States is a STATE office. The states created the Federal government, and in theory, could abolish it.
Voting machines are much more reliable than paper ballots since it is very easy to slip in fake ballots: the infamous “ballot stuffing” which Democrats have been doing since the 19th century (the Republicans, less so).
And Trump is a fool to try to increase the powers of the president, since some day there will be a Democratic president who will use these enhanced powers in ways the Republicans should dread.