Can Trump really ban mail-in voting?

President Donald Trump plans to use his office to try to get rid of mail-in ballots ahead of the 2026 elections for the House of Representatives and Senate.

“An executive order is being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail-in ballots because they’re corrupt,” he said in a social media post this week.

During a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Monday, Trump also showed a political motivation, saying that mail-in voting is “the only way” Democrats “can get elected”. “

Mail-in ballots, in part, helped Trump secure his 2024 victory over Democrat Kamala Harris. But he has long claimed, without proof, that he lost the 2020 election due to voter fraud perpetrated through mail-in ballots and voting machines.

Mail-in voting allows voters to cast their ballots at home and then send them in to be counted, instead of going in person to cast a ballot at a polling place.

Eight states and Washington, DC, allow all elections to be conducted entirely by mail: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington state.

Of those, only two – Nevada and Utah – went to Trump in 2024.

In most other states, voters can request at-home ballots and then cast their “absentee votes” either through the post or special dropboxes.

Mail-in ballots became more popular during the 2020 election when many voters were homebound because of the pandemic.

Altogether, 43% of votes cast in that election were on mailed ballots, compared to 30% in 2024, election data shows.

The phrase “voting machines” usually refers to devices that directly record a vote at the polling place. Typically a voter will make their choices on a touchscreen, and their votes will then be stored on a computer and also recorded in a paper trail in case of a recount or audit. These machines are used in 10 states alongside other methods.

Trump has said that “mail-in ballots are corrupt” and long suggested the method is susceptible to voter fraud. He also has said that it favours Democrats.

Since 2020, Democratic voters have been much more likely to use mail-in ballots, compared to Republicans, but research so far has not shown it gives the party’s candidates any advantage.

In the 2024 election, Trump seemed more relaxed about mail-in voting, encouraging supporters to “vote any way possible”, and the Republican party promoted it.

At least three states that Trump won in 2024 – North Carolina, Arizona and Pennsylvania – saw Republicans embrace mail-in ballots, sometimes outpacing Democrats, according to Politico.

In short, no.

The US Constitution says “times, places and manner of holding elections … shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof”.

It says Congress has a role to “make or alter such regulations”, but it does not specify a role for the President.

While Congress can change the way states run presidential and congressional elections, it cannot change how a state runs its own elections, for roles such as governor.

Most experts say this all means that Trump cannot tell states how to carry out 2026 voting.

Trump, though, posted on social media that under the law 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,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

UCLA election law professor Rick Hasen wrote on his blog that Trump’s statement was “wrong and dangerous.”

“The Constitution does not give the President any control over federal elections,” Hasen wrote.

The US has had some form of mail-in voting since the 19th century, though it has evolved and changed with time.

In announcing his upcoming executive order, Trump said that the US is the only country in the world that has mail-in voting.

Moments later, he walked back those remarks, saying that he “may be wrong”.

Some 34 countries, allow some kind of mail-in voting, according to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA).

Of those, 12 countries, including Canada, Germany and South Korea, allow all voters to vote by mail in their elections.