Donald Trump has made it clear: he wants mail-in ballots gone from U.S. elections. The method—used by nearly one-third of voters in the 2024 general election—is one he claims is vulnerable to fraud. But there’s a constitutional snag: presidents don’t get to write the rules for how Americans vote.
The power to regulate elections lies with Congress and the states. That means a sweeping, one-man ban issued from the Oval Office would likely be struck down as an overreach. Still, Trump insists he’ll move forward, floating an executive order to “bring honesty” to the 2026 midterms.
His allies aren’t idle either. Republican legislators across the country have already filed a flurry of lawsuits against mail-in voting, arguing it opens the door to manipulation. Democrats, meanwhile, defend the practice as essential to voter access. The numbers don’t back Trump’s warnings: study after study has shown voter fraud in the U.S. is vanishingly rare.
Could Trump’s allies succeed where he can’t? Possibly—but not easily. State legislatures controlled by Republicans could try to ban mail-in ballots within their borders, so long as those laws don’t collide with federal protections. Congress, too, could act, but slim Republican majorities and the Senate filibuster make such a move a long shot.
Even if Republicans managed to push through state or federal bans, they’d face an immediate gauntlet of legal challenges arguing such restrictions violate the right to vote.
That leaves Trump with one card to play: testing the edges of presidential authority. His administration has already tried to reshape the rules—earlier this year, a federal judge halted parts of his order requiring proof of citizenship at the ballot box and blocking late-arriving mail-in votes. The case is still on appeal, but the ruling underscored a central truth: the Constitution doesn’t hand presidents the keys to America’s voting system.
