| President Donald Trump is trying to ban mail-in voting and potentially voting machines and take control of how states administer their elections. Election experts say what he’s proposing is a possibly illegal and unconstitutional effort to change the way Americans vote, and they warned that it threatens free and fair elections. “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 said in a lengthy social media post Monday morning. “… 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.” “This is a really extraordinary and chilling assertion of presidential power that is not lawful,” said Wendy Weiser, vice president for democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice, which focuses on democracy issues. Here’s what’s going on. Trump is proposing inserting himself into how elections are held The president has no role in any elections. The Constitution says states run elections and tabulate the votes, while Congress can dictate the time, place and manner of elections. Yet Trump is suggesting that he and the federal government should play a bigger role in determining how people vote, including doing away with how millions of people currently cast ballots and federalizing the administration of elections, as well as counting the ballots— something that has never happened before. That is the antithesis of how the framers set up America’s democracy, say election experts. States do the counting, and Congress certifies the results. “There are good reasons why we don’t have a single person — a president — in charge of elections, let alone being in charge of the counting and tabulation of ballots,” Weiser said. “That is a … potentially dictatorial move. And I don’t say that lightly.” Trump is also departing from the long-held Republican approach to voting — that it’s better left up to the states. “When I was in office,” said former Kentucky secretary of state Trey Grayson, a Republican, “the number one principle of election administration at the national level was that the states run elections and Congress should be minimally involved. The last thing I want to do is allow President [Gavin] Newsom to set election law by executive order.” Voting by mail is safe and legal Trump is predicating his proposal to take over elections on debunked claims of fraud and manipulation of voting systems. Every state allows some form of voting by mail — at the very least for people who live abroad or serve in the military. Trump has voted by mail, and many other Republicans do as well. Other countries allow their citizens to mail their ballots. There is no evidence of major fraud when mail-in voting is used. Voting machines, too, were again in Trump’s crosshairs this week, but — just like mail-in voting — there is no evidence that those machines lead to widespread fraud or errors. Conservative news outlets have paid nearly $1 billion in total to voting machine companies to settle lawsuits after alleging as much in the 2020 election. “The president is wildly overplaying his hand,” said Matt Germer, the director of the governance program at the R Street Institute, a conservative think tank. “There are trade-offs to voting by mail, but by and large it is a secure method for voting, and it is also a necessary part of our voting system.” Trump has tried to reshape elections in other ways Trump’s proposal to dramatically change how elections are held in America came after a conversation he said he had with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which Trump seemed to take the autocrat’s comments about U.S. elections at face value. “You know, Vladimir Putin said something, one of the most interesting things,” Trump told Fox News after meeting with Putin in Alaska on Friday. “He said, ‘Your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting.’ He said, ‘Mail-in voting, every election.’ He said: ‘No country has mail-in voting. It’s impossible to have mail-in voting and have honest elections.’” Trump has also been open about his thinking on the 2026 midterm elections, in which Democrats could win back control of Congress. He is pushing Republicans in states such as Texas to redraw their congressional districts to make it harder for Democrats to win. He also issued an executive order to try to require people to use passports to register to vote, or find other ways to prove their citizenship, despite the fact that about half of Americans don’t have a passport. (Lower courts have paused this executive order.) Trump frames all this as “standing up to Save Our Country” from Democrats. That’s language that autocrats in countries such as Hungary have used to demonize the opposition, said Kim Lane Scheppele, a Princeton University professor who studies the rise and fall of constitutional governments. Trump has attacked voting methods for years, blaming the system — rather than himself — for his 2020 election loss. He also talks frequently about having “honest” elections but does not mention free ones. But what Trump suggested Monday raises the threat to elections, experts say. “Trump is on full-blast mode on ensuring next year’s elections aren’t free and fair,” Scheppele said. | 
