Key Takeaways

* 😕 The Republican National Committee spent millions on "Bank Your Vote" programs while Trump called mail voting "corrupt".

* 🗳️ At least 34 countries use mail voting, contradicting Trump's claim that America is "the only country" using it.

* 📊 In 2024, Republicans increased their mail voting share in Pennsylvania from 24% to 33%, helping them win key races.

* ⚖️ The Constitution gives states power over elections, not the president, making Trump's executive order threat largely symbolic.

* 🌊 Democratic voters continue to use mail voting more consistently, creating a partisan gap that hurts Republicans in low-turnout elections.

* 📈 Despite Trump's claims, election experts agree mail voting is secure with multiple verification steps in place.

* 🏛️ Several Republican-controlled states have actually expanded mail voting access while their party leaders attack it.

* 🔮 The GOP's contradictory position may hurt their long-term election prospects as their voters become confused about proper voting methods.

The GOP's Massive Investment In Mail Voting Infrastructure

I've been following Republican election strategies for years, and their approach to mail voting really confuses me sometimes. Like, they've actually spent millions trying to get their voters to use mail ballots while Trump keeps calling the whole thing corrupt. The RNC's "Bank Your Vote" program wasn't just some small initiative, it was a major nationwide effort with fancy websites and everything telling Republicans they "should feel comfortable" voting by mail . They even got Trump to record a message supporting it at one point, though that didn't last too long honestly.

What's interesting is that Republican operatives actually saw mail voting as a huge opportunity before Trump started his attacks. They'd mastered large-scale mail voter drives and recognized that mail voting could help them reach low-propensity voters, especially in rural areas where polling places might be far apart . The data shows that before 2020, mail voting didn't really have a partisan lean, it was just another voting method that both parties used about equally.

The numbers from 2024 show their investment kinda worked in some places. In Pennsylvania, Republicans managed to increase their share of the mail vote from 24% in 2020 to 33% in 2024 through what the New York Times called a "multifaceted campaign of messaging, fund-raising and field operations" . In deep-red states like Oklahoma, Kansas, and Iowa, Republicans actually made up the majority of mail voters after Democrats had dominated in 2020. And in Arizona, a swing state where most people vote by mail, Republicans had an eight-point advantage over Democrats in mail voting .

Table: Republican Mail Voting Improvements in 2024

But here's the thing, while the party was spending all this money on mail voting, Trump was out there telling everyone it was corrupt. This created what one analyst called "a trap of their own making" . They've got this institutional knowledge that mail voting helps them win, but they also have a leader who constantly undermines the very system they're investing in.

Trump's Consistent Pattern of Attacking Mail Voting

So Trump's thing with mail voting, he's been against it for years now, right? Like even before the 2020 election he was saying it was corrupt, and he's kept at it even after winning in 2024. I remember watching one rally where he told people in Michigan "Mail-in voting is totally corrupt. Get that through your head" and then at a Fox News town hall he said "If you have mail-in voting, you automatically have fraud" . It's like he's got this set talking points he just keeps repeating regardless of what his own party is doing.

What's really confusing is that Trump himself has voted by mail in the past. Like multiple times. And in 2024, he actually kinda softened his stance a bit under pressure from party leaders and told his supporters to vote early . But that didn't last long, now he's back to full-throttle attacks, promising executive orders and everything to try to eliminate mail voting entirely .

The most recent thing was when he met with Putin and then came out saying Putin agreed with him that the 2020 election was rigged because of mail voting. He told Hannity: "Vladimir Putin said something, one of the most interesting things. 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'" . Which is complete nonsense if you actually check the facts, but we'll get to that later.

Trump's also been making this weird constitutional argument that states are "merely an 'agent' for the Federal Government" in counting votes and must do what the president tells them . But every constitutional scholar I've read says that's just completely wrong. The Constitution gives states the power to run elections, not the president. Even Republican senators like Mitch McConnell have pushed back on this idea .

Why Trump Can't Actually Ban Mail Voting Himself

So here's the thing a lot of people don't get about elections in America, the president doesn't actually run them. Like at all. The Constitution is pretty clear about this in Article I, Section 4, it's the states that have the authority to regulate elections, not the federal government . This means when Trump threatens to sign an executive order banning mail voting, he's basically making an empty threat that wouldn't survive in court.

We know this because he already tried something similar back in March. He signed this executive order that would have created a documentary proof of citizenship requirement to register to vote and require that all mail ballots arrive by Election Day . But guess what happened? It got challenged in court immediately, and by July a federal judge had blocked most of it. Even prominent Republicans like Mitch McConnell spoke out against it, writing in a Wall Street Journal piece that "Elections may have national consequences but the power to conduct them rests in state capitols" .

The whole idea that states are "merely an agent" of the federal government when it comes to elections is just legally wrong. UCLA election law professor Rick Hasen wrote on his blog that Trump's statement is "wrong and dangerous" . David Becker, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation & Research, put it even more bluntly: "The President plays literally no role in elections, and that's by design of the founders" .

What Trump could do is keep pushing Republican-led states to restrict mail voting, and that's actually happening already. States like Kansas, North Dakota, and Utah passed legislation this year that eliminated grace periods for receiving mailed ballots, requiring them to arrive by Election Day now . But even in Republican states, there's often recognition that mail voting serves important purposes, especially for military voters overseas and older voters who might have trouble getting to polling places.

How States Are Actually Changing Mail Voting Laws

So despite all of Trump's rhetoric, states are making their own decisions about mail voting, and it's not just Republican states restricting it. Like in California, which is solidly Democratic, they're actually considering changes to speed up their counting process . A Democratic assemblyman named Marc Berman introduced legislation that would require county election officials to finish counting most ballots within 13 days after the election instead of the current 30 days they technically have.

What's interesting is Berman's reasoning, he said "I don't think that we can stick our heads in the sand and pretend like these conspiracies aren't out there and that this lack of confidence doesn't exist, in particular among Republican voters in California" . So even in blue states, the constant attacks on mail voting are having an effect on how elections are run.

But Republican states are definitely moving faster on restrictions. According to the Voting Rights Lab, Republicans in five states have passed legislation since the 2020 election moving the mail ballot deadline to Election Day . In Kansas, they ended the practice of accepting mail ballots up to three days after Election Day, even though problems with mail delivery had prompted them to add that grace period in the first place back in 2017.

Table: States That recently Changed Mail Voting Laws

The whole debate about when ballots should arrive is kinda missing the point though. As Minnesota's chief election official Steve Simon said: "There is nothing unreliable or insecure about a ballot that comes back after Election Day" . Ballots received after Election Day have to be postmarked by Election Day, so they're still valid votes that were cast on time, they just took longer to get there because of mail delivery delays.

The Practical Impact On Republican Voters

So all this conflicting messaging is actually having a real impact on how Republican voters behave. Like there was this poll that found only 28% of Republicans support no-excuse mail-in voting, making it literally the least popular election policy among Republicans, even less popular than automatic voter registration or letting felons vote after serving their sentences . That's pretty remarkable when you think about it.

The age gap is especially noticeable. In the 2022 midterms, only 38% of voters over 65 used mail voting even though the system was "largely designed to cater to their needs" according to one analysis . This is the group that traditionally used mail voting the most before Trump started attacking it, and now they're avoiding it because of partisan messaging.

We saw what happens in special elections too. In one Pennsylvania state House special election, the Democratic candidate won the mail-in vote 86% to 14% . And in that New York special election to replace George Santos, Democrats had already "banked" their mail-in votes before a snowstorm hit on Election Day, while Republicans had to scramble to rent snow plows to get their voters to the polls . That's a concrete example of how Democrats' embrace of mail voting gives them a practical advantage in certain situations.

The whole situation creates this weird paradox where Republican operatives know they need to bank early votes to win competitive elections, but their voters have been convinced that the method is suspicious. As one analyst put it: "Republicans cannot stop attacking mail-in voting because Donald Trump won't let them" . This puts them at a structural disadvantage against Democrats, who have embraced mail voting without all the internal conflict.

Mail Voting In Other Countries: What The Facts Show

So Trump keeps saying America is the "only country in the world that uses mail-in voting" . But is that actually true? Not even close. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance found that 34 countries or territories allow some form of mail voting . Some of these are major democracies like Canada, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Germany, and Denmark.

The systems vary a lot between countries though. According to the Institute's report, 12 countries allow all voters to vote by mail while 22 permit only some voters to vote this way . So while the U.S. isn't the only country doing it, we are definitely on the more permissive end of the spectrum.

What's interesting is how long mail voting has been around in some places. Australia introduced postal voting more than a century ago . All Canadians are eligible to use mail-in voting, and while it wasn't super common before COVID, it's become more popular since . In the United Kingdom, on-demand postal voting was part of election modernization in the early 2000s, driven largely by a desire to increase turnout .

The point is, mail voting isn't some weird American invention, it's a method used by many democracies around the world. And there's no evidence that countries with mail voting have less secure elections than those without it. If anything, the security measures like signature verification, barcode tracking, and paper trails make mail voting pretty secure in most implementations.

What This Means For Future Elections

Looking ahead to the 2026 midterms and beyond, this Republican conflict over mail voting could have serious consequences. Without Trump on the ballot himself to motivate their low-propensity voters, Republicans might struggle to turn out their base if they continue discouraging mail voting . It's one thing to get people excited to vote in person for Trump,it's another to get them to show up for a random Senate candidate or local election.

Some Republicans recognize this. As one writer put it: "Republicans should recognize it is in their interest to make it easier for people in far-flung rural areas to vote by mail at home, instead of forcing them to travel long distances in uncertain weather to vote in person" . But what's in the party's long-term interest isn't necessarily what serves Trump's short-term interest in promoting conspiracy theories to justify power grabs.

The practical reality is that mail voting isn't going away completely. Too many voters,including many Republicans, have come to appreciate the convenience. Even if some states tighten their laws, mail voting will likely remain a significant part of the electoral landscape for the foreseeable future.

The question is whether Republicans will eventually align their rhetoric with their action, or whether they'll continue with this contradictory approach of investing in mail voting operations while publicly attacking the method. This tension between political pragmatism and ideological positioning really defines the current Republican approach to election administration, and it's creating all sorts of weird paradoxes that confuse their own voters.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is mail voting actually secure? Yes, mail voting has multiple security features that make it secure. Election officials verify every mail ballot submission before counting them, checking signatures and other identifying information against what they have on file . Mail ballots suspected of fraudulent activity are set aside for investigation and referred to law enforcement when appropriate. Many states also use tracking systems that allow voters to follow their ballot through the process.

How many countries actually use mail voting? According to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 34 countries or territories allow some form of mail voting . These include Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, and others. Trump's claim that the U.S. is "the only country" that uses it is false.

Can Trump actually ban mail voting with an executive order? No, the Constitution gives states the power to regulate elections, not the president . Any executive order attempting to ban mail voting would face immediate legal challenges and would likely be blocked in court. Trump already tried a similar approach in March 2025 with an executive order on election rules, but most of it was blocked by a federal judge .

Why are some Republicans supporting mail voting while others attack it? There's a tension between political pragmatism and ideological positioning within the party. Republican operatives know that mail voting can help them reach low-propensity voters and win elections, but Trump and his allies continue attacking it to feed conspiracy theories about election fraud . This creates a contradictory approach where the party invests in mail voting operations while its leaders publicly undermine confidence in the method.

How has mail voting changed since 2020? Many states have modified their mail voting laws since 2020. Some Republican-led states have restricted access by eliminating grace periods for receiving ballots or adding new requirements . At the same time, mail voting has become more accepted by Republican voters in some states, with the GOP increasing their share of mail votes in several states in 2024 compared to 2020 .

Do Democrats have an advantage with mail voting? Currently, yes. Democrats continue to use mail voting at higher rates than Republicans in most states . This gives them a "banking" advantage where they can secure votes before Election Day, while Republicans rely more on same-day turnout. This structural advantage became evident in special elections where weather or other unexpected events disrupted Election Day voting.

What's the future of mail voting in the U.S.? Mail voting is likely here to stay despite the attacks against it. Many voters appreciate the convenience, and election officials have developed robust systems to administer it securely . The rules may continue to evolve at the state level, with some states restricting access while others make it more convenient, but the method itself has become too entrenched to eliminate completely.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit earlcotten.substack.com/subscribe