Gov. Josh Shapiro said Tuesday that President Trump’s promise to end mail-in voting before the 2026 midterm elections won’t affect elections in Pennsylvania.
On Monday, Mr. Trump said he planned to sign an executive order “to end mail-in ballots, because they’re corrupt,” but Shapiro said his comments were unconstitutional.
“Donald Trump can sign whatever executive order he wants; it will have absolutely no bearing on our elections here in Pennsylvania, and we will once again have free and fair, safe and secure elections led by Democratic and Republican clerks of elections in each of our 67 counties,” Shapiro said at an unrelated event.
During a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Oval Office on Monday, Mr. Trump said that he wanted to ban mail-in voting, however, the Constitution doesn’t give him the power to do so. According to Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution, states have the power to regulate elections, not the president. That can only be changed by Congress.
Mr. Trump has claimed that mail-in voting is susceptible to voter fraud and that mail-in ballots can be tampered with or enable people to vote multiple times. Pennsylvania enacted mail-in voting in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 election, which Mr. Trump lost to former President Joe Biden.
The U.S. Census Bureau said that nearly a third of ballots nationwide were cast by mail in the 2024 election, which Mr. Trump won over former Vice President Kamala Harris.
The Committee of Seventy, a nonprofit government watchdog organization in Philadelphia, called Mr. Trump’s comments dangerous.
“It seems clear that these efforts by the federal government are an attempt to sow doubt in our elections ahead of the 2026 midterms,” The Committee of Seventy wrote in a statement in part. “Whether the intention is to lay the groundwork for rejecting results in the event of a loss, or to exploit states where one party controls all branches of government to push a federal agenda, the facts are the facts: our elections are secure, mail-in voting is secure, and election administration must remain in the hands of the states.”
In the 2024 election, Mr. Trump claimed there was “massive cheating” in Philadelphia, which was false, according to election officials. He didn’t provide any evidence for his claim.
Mr. Trump attempted to challenge the 2020 election results in Pennsylvania numerous times after he lost the state to Biden, but the courts found his claims were baseless.
“For him to try and put more misinformation out there to stoke more division and fear amongst people who want to exercise their constitutional right to pick the leaders in their communities, in their commonwealth, that is just cynical and wrong,” Shapiro said.
contributed to this report.
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