Taking Putin's Advice, Trump Aims to Shut Down Mail-in Voting

Trump's latest plan to rig the 2026 midterms is straight out of Putin's playbook

Photo by Benjamin Applebaum (non-endorsed public domain image)

After concluding his disturbingly amicable meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, Donald Trump seems especially eager to borrow pages out of the dictator’s playbook.

Namely, at the advice of his Russian parallel, Trump has renewed his efforts to shut down mail-in voting as part of an unmistakable plan to rig elections in his favor.

In an interview with Fox News, Trump explained to Bret Baier about how Putin, a bloodthirsty tyrant, convinced him that mail-in voting is supposedly corrupt and dishonest — claims not supported by facts or reality.

“[Putin] said: 'Your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting,’” he recounted. “‘It’s impossible to have mail-in voting and have honest elections.’”

Thereafter, Trump promised to “lead a movement” aimed at ending mail-in voting in all 50 states before the 2026 midterms, starting by signing an executive order.

“We, as a Republican party, are going to do everything possible that we get rid of mail-in ballots,” the president later told reporters on Monday. “We're going to start with an executive order that's being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail-in ballots.”

To support his anti-democratic narrative, Trump predictably cited fabricated and make-believe scenarios best described as ‘alternative facts.’

“It’s so corrupt, where some people get five, six, seven ballots delivered to them,” he repeated. “We are now the only country in the world that uses mail-in voting.”

Of course, this type of fraud is exceedingly rare, is just as easily caught by election officials, and has never affected the results of a national election. In fact, the Brennan Center estimates that voters are more likely to be struck by lightning than commit mail-in ballot fraud.

Likewise, at least 30 other democratic countries feature some form of mail-in voting, debunking the egregious lie that only the United States allows it.

Needless to say, Donald Trump’s decision to take ‘election integrity’ advice from a warmongering Russian dictator is deeply troubling — underscoring his poor judgment and open willingness to embrace pathetic autocratic fantasies.

Under Putin’s dictatorship, the Russian Federation has not held an honest or fair election in decades, if ever. International organizations tracking democracy, such as Freedom House, classify Russia as an authoritarian single-party police state where elections are manipulated to produce Putin-favorable outcomes.

To that end, the Kremlin routinely suppresses political dissent and genuine opposition through violence and intimidation, including assassinations involving poisonings, shootings, defenestration, and vehicular sabotage.

Certainly, unless you are an anti-American and anti-democratic dictator, Vladimir Putin is the last person on Earth you should be taking election integrity advice from.

By targeting mail-in ballots, redrawing congressional maps, and implementing a wide range of voter suppression measures, Trump is fighting to bring the Kremlin model to America — killing our 250-year-old democratic experiment to ensure that he and his hand-selected successors will never lose again.

Conversely, mail-in ballots have helped make voting and democratic participation more accessible to a greater number of people, increasing overall turnout and resulting in elections that more closely reflect public sentiment.

This is exactly why MAGA Republicans want to stop it.

In reality, Trump and his MAGA sycophants do not care about securing our elections from non-existent fraud; rather, they are only trying to consolidate power by disenfranchising their opposition.

From stripping healthcare away from millions of Americans, to passing historically unprecedented tax cuts for the super wealthy, Donald Trump recognizes his cruel policies are abject failures and deeply unpopular. However, instead of passing laws supported by the majority of Americans, and winning on merit, Republicans would prefer to embrace authoritarian tactics to remain in power indefinitely.

Thankfully, as the Constitution gives states and Congress the authority to shape elections — not the president — Trump’s executive orders on ending mail-in voting are non-binding and carry no legal weight.

Nevertheless, the law has never stopped him before, and if left unchecked, this administration and its allies will do everything in their power to prevent Democrats and progressives from ever holding office again. We must not let this happen.

Above all, we must not allow Trump to ‘Make America Russia.’