Debate swirls around Trump's call to end unrestricted mail-in voting

Nearly one in five Pennsylvanians who voted for Donald Trump in last year’s presidential election cast their ballots by mail, and the GOP spent millions to promote mail-in voting in the run-up to the election.

Now, President Trump says he wants to end the practice of allowing people to vote by mail for any reason before next year’s midterm elections.

Trump said he also wants to get rid of voting machines that he described as “Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial.”

In a Truth Social post this week, Trump wrote, “THE MAIL-IN BALLOT HOAX (AND) USING VOTING MACHINES THAT ARE A COMPLETE AND TOTAL DISASTER, MUST END, NOW!!!”

In the post, Trump repeated claims he made after losing the 2020 presidential election of widespread fraud and cheating by Democrats.

Multiple court rulings, government agencies and independent investigations concluded there was no evidence of widespread election fraud or cheating in 2020.

Trump also falsely claimed in his post that the United States is the world’s only country to use mail-in voting.

The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, based in Sweden, says the United States is one of 11 countries that allows voters to cast their ballots by mail for any reason. Among them are Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and South Korea.

Trump said he would begin his effort by signing an executive order.

“Remember, the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do,” Trump said in his social media post.

The U.S. Constitution’s Election Clause grants states, not the president, the power to determine the “times, places and manner” of holding elections for Congress. It also says that Congress may make or alter such regulations.

Republicans hold the majority in both the U.S. House and Senate.

“Look, Donald Trump can sign whatever the hell executive orders he wants to sign and make a show out of whatever he wants, but he can’t change the Constitution with an executive order,” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said this week during a news conference in Harrisburg.

“For (Trump) to try and put more misinformation out there, to stoke more division and fear amongst people who want to exercise their Constitutional right to pick the leaders in their communities and the commonwealth, that is just cynical and wrong,” Shapiro added.

Shapiro said any related executive order signed by Trump would “have absolutely no bearing on our elections here in Pennsylvania.

“We will once again have free and fair, safe and secure elections led by Republican and Democratic clerks of elections in each of our 67 counties. People will be able to vote by mail, people will be able to vote in person.”

Democratic members of Congress also spoke out against Trump’s plan.

“Of course Donald Trump does not have the power to ban mail voting in the states. I understand that he still has a hard time accepting the fact that he lost — and lost by a lot — in the 2020 election. But our Constitution is crystal clear: the Congress and the states have authority over our elections and the methods of voting,” U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio, D-Fox Chapel, said in a statement.

U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, added: “Trump is once again peddling his debunked lies to rig our democracy and silence voters to serve only himself and his special interests. Mail-in ballots are secure and widely used across the country — including in Republican states. This ‘movement’ is blatantly unconstitutional.”

U.S. Reps. Mike Kelly, R-Butler, and Guy Reschenthaler, R-Peters, and U.S. Sens. John Fetterman, D-Braddock, and Dave McCormick, R-Pittsburgh, did not respond to requests for comment.

The Republican-controlled state Legislature passed an election reform bill in 2019 that, among other things, allowed Pennsylvanians to vote by mail for any reason. Previously, that option had been limited to voters facing certain circumstances that would keep them from voting in person at a polling place — including illness, physical disability, religious observance and out-of-town work. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf signed the bill into law.

The following year, with the arrival of the covid-19 pandemic, people voted by mail in large numbers. Democratic voters embraced mail-in voting in bigger numbers from the start, but Republicans have increasingly voted by mail in recent years.

Andy Reilly, a Pennsylvania representative on the Republican National Committee, said the GOP spent about $16 million to promote mail-in voting across the state during the 2024 election cycle. He said it resulted in a 7 to 10 percentage point increase in Republican voters choosing that option, contributing to wins by Trump and McCormick.

“We had to accept the fact that those were the rules that were going to be in place for the 2024 election,” said Reilly, a senior adviser and assistant general counsel to GSL Public Strategies Group, a consulting, government affairs and communications firm.

But going forward, Reilly said, “To me, unrestricted mail-in voting is a covid-era rule and covid is over. Voter fraud is too difficult to police” with such voting.

He said he would like to see Pennsylvania return to restricted absentee voting while expanding in-person voting in the days and weeks before Election Day to accommodate more voters.

“We shouldn’t do anything that invites ballot harvesting or fraud,” Reilly said. “My hope is that Pennsylvanians in both parties would say, ‘Let’s get a system that’s safe and has a great level of integrity, and then also expand in-person voting.”