Trump vows to target mail-in ballots ahead of 2026 midterm election

U.S. President Donald Trump pledged on Monday to issue an executive order to end the use of mail-in ballots and voting machines ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, a move likely to spark legal challenges by the states.

“I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we’re at it, Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES,” he wrote in a social media post.

Trump, who has promoted the false narrative that he, not Democrat Joe Biden, won the 2020 election, has long cast doubt on the security of mail-in ballots and urged his fellow Republicans to try harder to overhaul the U.S. voting system.

Some Republican states, such as Florida, however, have embraced mail-in voting as a safe, convenient way to expand voter participation. Trump voted by mail in some previous elections and urged his supporters to do so for the 2024 presidential election.

Mail-in ballots hit record highs in the U.S. in 2020 amid the pandemic as states expanded options for voters, but the numbers dropped in 2024, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

More than two-thirds of voters in the 2024 general election cast their ballots in person, while about three in 10 ballots were cast through mail voting, according to the commission.

Trump’s comments follow his meeting with his Russian counterpart on Friday, after which Trump said Vladimir Putin agreed with him on ending mail-in balloting.

Each of the 50 U.S. states runs elections separately, but Trump warned them to comply.

“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 wrote.

Trump repeated the false claim on Monday that the U.S. is the only country that permits mail-in balloting.

Nearly three dozen countries from Canada to Germany and South Korea allow some form of postal vote, though more than half of them place some restrictions on which voters qualify, according to the Sweden-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, an intergovernmental advocacy group.

Trump previously signed a March 25 executive order targeting elections that has been blocked by the courts after Democrat-led states sued.