ArcaMax

When I was a high school debate coach, my first rule was: Always start with the facts. So let’s start with this incontrovertible fact: There’s nothing wrong with voting by mail. Just the opposite. As I can attest, having voted by mail in every election for the last 30 years, there’s everything good about it. It’s convenient, easy, accurate, safe, and secure.

Voting by mail has become as American as apple pie. In 2024, one-third of Americans voted by mail. Some form of absentee/mail ballot exists in all 50 states. In 37 states, no medical or family emergency is necessary. You just need to request a mail-in ballot. To encourage voting by mail, eight states – California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, and Washington, plus the District of Columbia – automatically send a mail-in ballot to every registered voter.

In 2000, blue-state Oregon started voting entirely by mail, the first state to do so. In 2019, red-state Utah followed, although with a few, limited polling centers. Three more states – Washington, Colorado, and Hawaii –also now vote almost exclusively by mail. And, while there are always a handful of isolated cases, there is not now, and never has been, any evidence of massive voter fraud related to mail-in voting in any state. No matter what Donald Trump says. Never.

In fact, an analysis of the 2024 national vote showed that the most common reason a mail ballot was rejected was a missing or mismatched signature. Another 17.8 percent of rejected ballots were received after the deadline. And 11.1 percent were rejected because the voter had already cast another ballot. And note: all those invalid ballots were caught, rejected, and never counted.

The only problem with mail-in ballots, in other words, is not voter fraud, but voter stupidity. But nothing can compare to the monumental stupidity of Donald J. Trump who, for whatever inexplicable reason, has developed a phobia about vote by mail. It’s his White Whale. With zero evidence, he calls it “Cheating by Mail.” Even though – get this! – he’s voted by mail in Florida at least five times. Which is just one more case of Trump’s regal rule: the law applies to everyone but me, because I’m the king.

But Trump’s not only upset about vote by mail, he’s doing everything he can to kill it. On March 31, he signed an executive order requiring the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in coordination with the Social Security Administration, to compile and transmit state citizenship lists to send to state election officials at least 60 days before regularly scheduled federal elections, and demanding that states provide voter rolls to the U.S. Postal Service before sending out ballots.

Fortunately, that executive order is being challenged in court by several civil rights organizations led by Common Cause, the NAACP, and the League of Women Voters on two counts. One, the Constitution – which gives states, not federal agencies, the exclusive power to conduct elections. Two, the timing. We’re now less than 60 days from the midterms and some states have already started sending out ballots, before the legality of Trump’s executive order is decided.

In a desperate move, Trump has asked the Supreme Court to step in. Again. Which they might. Again. But even if they rule against him, it won’t stop Trump. Because his anti-mail vote campaign is only one element of his overall plans to undermine the midterm elections. It’s clear he’ll do anything he can – send ICE agents to polling places; call out the military; invoke an emergency and invoke martial law; invalidate all votes by mail; offer voters a $5,000 bribe – anything he can to disrupt, cancel, or invalidate the midterms.

Why? Because he knows that with the war in Iran dragging on, the price of gas over $4, the price of groceries ballooning every week, the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein still hanging over him, and his approval rating at an all-time low of 33 percent, the only way Republicans can win November is to cheat.

Now here’s the ultimate irony. Any Republican strategist will admit that, historically, the party that benefits most from “absentee ballots” has always been the Republican Party. Simply because they’re better organized and more effective at encouraging people to get their votes in early. That’s why former Speaker Kevin McCarthy tried to talk Trump out of attacking vote by mail. Because by limiting or destroying mail-in voting, Trump is not just undermining democracy, he’s making it harder for Republican candidates to win.

Of course, everybody knows that except the overweight, uninformed, mentally unhinged idiot in the White House.

(Bill Press is host of The BillPressPod, and author of 10 books, including: “From the Left: My Life in the Crossfire.” His email address is: bill@billpress.com. Readers may also follow him on Twitter @billpresspod and on BlueSky @BillPress.bsky.social.)

©2026 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.