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Trump meets with Zelenskyy | Special Report
President Trump promised Monday to enactment to extremity mail-in voting and said enactment is already underway connected an enforcement bid to prohibition it earlier the 2026 midterm elections, though the Constitution does not springiness him this power.
"We, arsenic a Republican Party, are going to bash everything imaginable that we get escaped of mail-in ballots," helium said during an Oval Office gathering with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. "We're going to commencement with an enforcement bid that's being written close present by the champion lawyers successful the state to extremity mail-in ballots."
Why does Trump privation to prohibition mail-in ballots?
"Mail-in ballots are corrupt," the president said. He suggested the method is susceptible to elector fraud, claiming successful California, "it's truthful corrupt, wherever immoderate radical get five, six, 7 ballots delivered to them." He has often insisted mail-in ballots tin beryllium tampered with oregon alteration radical to ballot aggregate times.
But soon aft the 2020 election, Debra Cleaver, laminitis and CEO of VoteAmerica, a nonpartisan elector accusation site, dismissed the thought of wide elector fraud arsenic "a myth."
"The outgoing ballots person a barcode, and past erstwhile you nonstop your ballot in, you enactment it successful a instrumentality envelope and that barcode has to lucifer the barcode that was sent retired successful bid for the ballot to beryllium counted," she explained to CBS News.
After that election, the manager of the nation's cyber information agency, Christopher Krebs, called the 2020 ballot "the astir unafraid successful American history."
In 2024, erstwhile Mr. Trump won the statesmanlike election, the U.S. Census Bureau said astir a 3rd of ballots nationwide were formed by mail.
Trump's impending enforcement bid to halt message voting — would it beryllium legal?
In a societal media station earlier successful the day, the president said of the impending bid that it would "help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm Elections."
He claimed that the states "are simply an 'agent' for the Federal Government successful counting and tabulating the votes," and that "[t]hey indispensable bash what the Federal Government, arsenic represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do."
But Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution says it's the states that person the authorization to modulate elections, not the president, and this whitethorn beryllium changed lone by Congress.
Trump claims U.S. is the lone state that uses mail-in voting. Is that true?
Mr. Trump besides claimed, "We are present the lone Country successful the World that uses Mail-In Voting" and argued, "You volition ne'er person an honorable predetermination if you person mail-in. And it's clip that the Republicans get pugnacious and halt it, due to the fact that the Democrats privation it. It's the lone mode they tin get elected."
In fact, much than 30 different countries let voting by message for immoderate oregon each voters, according to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, an intergovernmental advocacy radical based successful Sweden. Canada, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Germany, and Denmark are among them.
Mail-in voting successful the U.S.
In the U.S., message voting is widespread: 28 states let immoderate elector to petition a mail-in ballot, portion the remainder necessitate a a documented crushed specified arsenic unwellness oregon subject service.
The pandemic gave message voting a immense boost successful the 2020 elections. About 43% of voters formed their ballot by message that year, according to a report by the Election Assistance Commission. In 2024, message voting dropped off, representing conscionable implicit 30% of the full votes formed — astir 46.8 cardinal votes. The committee said that past year's numbers inactive exceeded pre-pandemic levels.
The taxable of mail-in voting came up during Mr. Trump's gathering with Russian President Vladimir Putin past Friday, too. After the 2 met Friday, the president told Fox News' Sean Hannity that "Vladimir Putin, astute guy, said, 'You can't person an honorable election, predetermination with mail-in voting.' And helium said, 'There's not a state successful the satellite that uses it now.'"
Mr. Trump said the 2 talked astir the 2020 predetermination and that Putin told him, "You won that predetermination by truthful much, and that's (mail voting) however [Biden] got it." Audits and investigations, including immoderate conducted by Trump supporters and Republican secretaries of state, showed nary grounds that the 2020 predetermination results were inaccurate.
David Becker, the enforcement manager of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, pointed retired successful a connection to CBS News that mail-in voting has been astir since the Civil War and said getting escaped of message voting "is an incredibly atrocious thought that would marque our elections overmuch little unafraid and susceptible to interference."
"Requiring states to destruct oregon regenerate the voting machines that confirmed the predetermination of this president, conscionable 15 months earlier a midterm predetermination and little than a twelvemonth earlier primaries, is not imaginable and would effect successful chaos," said Becker, who is besides a CBS News predetermination instrumentality contributor.
Sara Cook and Jenna Gibson Riggins contributed to this report.
Laura Doan is simply a information checker for CBS News Confirmed. She covers misinformation, AI and societal media.
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