Had President Donald Trump actually read the U.S. Constitution he would have seen that Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 says state legislatures determine the “Times, Places, and Manner of holding Elections” and only Congress can alter such laws, not the president. Would it have mattered to someone who views such clauses as mere suggestions? Maybe not.
In a recent social media post, Trump declared he intends to issue an executive order to prohibit state laws from using mail-in voting in the 2026 election. This is a clear defiance of the Constitution’s delegation of power to the states. Trump also lambasted mail-in voting as inaccurate, said no other country allowed it, and claimed Democrats used mail-in voting to cheat and could not be elected without it. He also assailed voting machines as less accurate than hand counting. If Trump was striving for 100% inaccuracy in a single post, he nailed it.
A few days earlier, Trump told Sean Hannity that Russian Dictator Vladimir Putin told him the 2020 election was rigged because of mail-in voting. Whether such flattery will get Putin ownership of Donetsk, Ukraine, time will tell. A master of fraud who stays in power by putting competitors and critics behind bars and in the grave isn’t exactly credible on elections.
Study after study shows that instances of election fraud in the U.S. are exceedingly rare. Certified ballot-counting machines are actually more accurate when counting large volumes of ballots than hand counts, which are more susceptible to human error. Mail-in voting combines the best of voting methods. Every voter gets a trackable paper ballot that can be recounted if necessary. Certified machines do the counting, reducing instances of error, intentional or accidental. Unlike in the less-than-golden olden days, people cannot stuff ballot boxes or toss them into the river because ballots are tracked and voters are notified when their vote is cast.
Voting by mail is also far more inclusive. Before mail-in ballots, in order to vote absentee, one had to request such a ballot in advance. That meant on election day voters who were unexpectedly called out of town, too sick to leave the house, stuck at work, or held up in a crisis situation did not get to vote.
While I miss the days of in-person voting, serving as an election judge, and meeting members of my community in what felt like a patriotic, community effort, giving more Americans greater access to the polls is more important than my nostalgia.
Where mail-in voting is permitted, it is preferred. Colorado adopted mail-in voting in 2013. While Colorado voters can still vote in-person on election day, mail-in voting has become by far the more popular method. In the 2024 election, 92.2% of voters voted by mail.
The superiority of mail-in voting is why an increasing number of nations — 34 mostly western countries or territories at this time — allow some or all of their citizens to vote by mail.
In the U.S., eight states — Colorado, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington — vote predominantly by mail. If Democrats rely on mail-in voting to cheat, how did Utah manage to send only Republicans to Congress?
Still other states allow mail voting under certain circumstances. Nebraska and North Dakota enable counties to opt for mail-in elections. Twelve states allow mail-in voting for small jurisdictions like rural towns or small elections like for school boards or both (Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and Wyoming) according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. All states allow absentee voting for those under certain conditions such as being away from their precinct on election day, having a disability or illness, and being in the military and working abroad.
It is unclear whether Trump will attempt to stop just mail-in voting or will also target absentee voting and voting machines. One wonders if the planned executive order is just a prop in his stolen 2020 election farce or an actual attempt to reduce voting. Either way it’s going down in the courts.
Krista Kafer is a Sunday Denver Post columnist.
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