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President Donald Trump said on Monday, Aug. 18, that he will fight to bring more honesty to elections in the United States by doing away with mail-in ballots and voting machines.
Washington, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon and Utah conduct elections entirely by mail-in voting.
Trump claims that mail-in ballots and voting machines are inaccurate, expensive and controversial – reciting his false claim that the votes for the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to former President Joe Biden, were fraudulent. In his social media post, Trump claimed that the U.S. is the only country that utilizes mail-in ballots, but 12 countries allow mail-in ballots for all voters.
“ELECTIONS CAN NEVER BE HONEST WITH MAIL IN BALLOTS/ VOTING, and everybody, IN PARTICULAR THE DEMOCRATS, KNOWS THIS. I, AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, WILL FIGHT LIKE HELL TO BRING HONESTY AND INTEGRITY BACK TO OUR ELECTIONS,” Trump wrote on trumpstruth.org.
Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton insists that mail-in ballots are safe, secure and accurate.
“The remarks that the president has made are not based on fact and not based in reality,” Dalton said. “That’s been shown over and over again. Not only is voting by mail safe, secure and accurate, but so are the machines.”
Proof of that, Dalton said, can be found in the Washington recounts. When they’re done by hand, the results are the same as the original results, which are tabulated by machine.
Washington state started a vote-by-mail option in 1983 and allowed counties to choose to vote entirely by mail in 2005. Since 2011, Washingtonians have been voting entirely by mail-in ballots, when the Legislature required voting by mail. Since then, all eligible voters are sent a ballot at least 18 days before an election. The mailing address can be anywhere in the world, so servicemembers and people overseas can vote in elections.
“We can’t be for suppressing the vote. Vote-by-mail is the consistently most safe and trackable method of voting,” Democratic U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell said in a statement on Monday.
When Washingtonians register to vote, they provide their driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number, former Republican Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman said in an interview Monday afternoon. Those numbers are verified against the Social Security list and the Department of Licensing.
“We have a high confidence level that the people that are registered to vote in our system are actual people who are Washington residents and meet the qualifications to vote,” Wyman said.
Trump said his effort will begin through an executive order that has yet to be signed or released to the public. Trump did not elaborate on what the executive order would say.
The U.S. Constitution says that the states have the authority to determine the time, manner and place of elections, not the president.
“It is not Congress’s authority. It is not the executive branch’s authority. It rests with the states,” Wyman said.
Congress can make laws for federal elections, but the executive branch and the president do not have that authority, Wyman said. If Trump wrote an executive order attempting to eliminate mail-in elections, that authority would be challenged in court. And the Constitution is clear enough that Wyman says an executive order attempting to eliminate mail-in ballots would not hold up.
“I think anyone who has actually read The Constitution knows that his interpretation is not accurate,” Dalton said.
The only path for Trump to mandate in-person voting would be through Congress, Wyman said, and it would only apply to federal elections – congressional, U.S. senate and presidential races. Then there would be two sets of rules for elections.
Poll site operations were difficult in Washington, Dalton said. Toward the end of poll voting in the state, it was becoming more difficult to find polling locations. Schools were less available because of heightened security measures amid the rise in school shootings. In Spokane County, anyone who touches a ballot is a paid employee, Dalton said, and in-person polls means more employees to pay. If voting machines were eliminated, the state would pay even more money for staffing because counting ballots would take longer, Dalton said.
“Mail-in is something that’s had a real positive impact on the younger voters and voters who have moved,” Dalton said.
It makes voting more convenient and gives folks more time to look over their ballots, which could be an opportunity that allows for more educated votes, Dalton said.
Trump’s social media post followed his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday. In an interview with Fox News,Trump said that Putin suggested the 2020 election was rigged because of mail-in voting.
“I find it interesting that the president of Russia would be making disparaging remarks about vote-by-mail elections. Saying that is creating a narrative that is designed to divide Americans. That’s straight out of the Russian playbook, to try to bring harm to the U.S.,” Wyman said. “President Putin does not want American citizens to believe that their government is well-run and doesn’t want American citizens to believe that they can trust their neighbors.”
