Abstract: This week Arne Werchick examines the potential implications of Donald Trump's August 18th announcement threatening to eliminate mail-in voting through executive order, which would disenfranchise approximately 50 million voters who rely on this system. The analysis explores how Trump's plan could work in practice, noting that while elections are typically administered at the state level, Congress has constitutional authority to determine the qualifications of its own members, potentially allowing a Republican-controlled House and Senate to reject results from states that continue mail-in voting. The piece discusses the particular vulnerability of eight states that conduct elections primarily through mail-in ballots and examines the constitutional ambiguities surrounding federal versus state authority over voting methods. To counter these threats, Arne proposes several strategies including creating mobile ballot collection systems as an alternative to traditional fixed polling places, litigation to protect voting rights.
On August 18, Donald Trump took off the gloves and announced that he wants to rig the system so Republicans take it all. He said,
"You will never have an honest election if you have mail-in. And it's time that the Republicans get tough and stop it, because the Democrats want it. It's the only way they can get elected."
Translation: eliminate mail-in voting and no Democrats will get elected. “President Trump is absolutely right, we need safe and secure elections,” the Republican National Committee said in a supporting statement.
On Monday the 18th Trump promised “an executive order being written right now by the best lawyers in the country”. On Wednesday the 20th one or more White House spokespeople hastily tried to suggest when pressed about Trump’s executive order threat that Trump will seek a legislative end to mail-in voting from his MAGA-friendly Congress when they reconvene; it was unclear if they were suggesting Trump won’t follow through on the threat of executive order or intends to do it in conjunction with subsequent legislation. Silence since then. No matter which path they chart, given Trump’s authoritarian executive order binges and clear anti-democratic intentions, it is the threat to free elections that must be taken seriously and immediately.
No president has ever advocated or threatened to institute a system where his party steals every election by INSTANTLY DISENFRANCHISING FIFTY MILLION U.S. VOTERS. In the 2024 Congressional races, almost one-third of votes were cast by mail; almost 160 million people voted in all. California, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and Colorado automatically send a ballot to every registered voter for every election and expect them to be returned by mail, with very limited opportunities for in-person voting since traditional neighborhood polling places are no longer needed. In a flash Trump has ordained that this system is done.
While it is true the Constitution states that elections to federal office are administered at the state and not federal level, there has never been a definitive court ruling that states can adopt differing methods of balloting or specifically upholding universal mail-in voting as opposed to limited absentee balloting on request. Theoretically at least, voter qualifications and voting methods (mail versus in person) are a state matter, but the law appears far from settled. Article I, section 4, is not a model of clarity:
“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.”
But there’s an additional scenario to which most of you probably haven’t yet given any thought: as I mentioned in an earlier discussion, the final decision as to who is elected to Congress does not belong to any court or to a state’s Secretary of State or a local vote counter. Rather it is each house of Congress that has final say over who is elected. Article I, Section 5, Clause 1 of the U.S Constitution states:
“Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business . . . .”
Trump argued in a Truth Social post on the same day he promised to promulgate the executive order that states are but an “agent” for the federal government in counting and tabulating 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,”
the president wrote. This gives rise to the distinct possibility of this scenario: Trump orders an end to mail-in voting (and/or presses Congress for enabling legislation); next November, as each state reports the results of its elections, it will be the loyal MAGA Republican House of Representatives under the gavel of Speaker Mike Johnson and the equally loyal Republican Senate led by John Thune that decides which results actually count -- the same people who cobbled together this year’s budget-busting Medicaid-destroying rich-people-tax-giveaway Big Beautiful Bill -- those will be the people will actually decide who won each Congressional District in California, Oregon, Hawaii etc. If Il Duce has ordained that only in-person votes count, just how many Democrats are likely to be seated! And do we really believe the MAGA Supreme Court will say otherwise given the unambiguous language of the Constitution allowing Congress to determine its own membership?
Is there anything we can possibly do to forestall such an abrupt and disastrous end to democratic Congressional elections? Should the eight states with almost exclusively mail-in voting humbly succumb to Trump’s fascist dictates or persist in mail ballots. Is there any obvious work-around.
I have only a few random thoughts to offer and invite readers to submit additional proposals. It is becoming obvious that we cannot rely upon the Democratic Party to mount the necessary opposition to Trump’s electoral suppression. As reported in the New York Times this week, the already enfeebled Dem Party is hemorrhaging registrants and increasingly appears ineffectual and impotent. It is past time to remake the party of the American left, just as MAGA consumed the old Republican Party, but this will be a project of years and not weeks, and Trump’s assault on voting won’t wait the year or three a political revival will take at a minimum. We are left trying to muster anticipatory opposition to Trump’s threats without an effective national party structure to lead the way.
Susan Collins is running for re-election to the Senate from Maine in 2026. She is unpopular in her state and vulnerable, though Democrats have yet to produce a high-profile opponent to challenge her. Maine doesn’t rely heavily on mail-in voting. With enough pressure -- and it will take everything the Democrats can muster -- she may be persuadable to announce ahead of time her opposition to Trump’s antics and opposition to any national legislation interfering with each state’s ability to establish its own voting procedures.
Lisa Murkowski is rumored to be thinking about running for Alaska governor in 2026 although her Senate term doesn’t end until 2028. She is the most likely Republican senator to be sickened by Trump’s outrageous conduct and may also be pressed to announce her intention to oppose any attempts to throw out mail-in ballot state elections. Alaska has fairly liberal by-request mail-in balloting -- what’s referred to as “no-excuse absentee voting”, meaning the voter need not provide any explanation for requesting to vote by mail -- and it has been estimated that perhaps 15% of ballots in the 2022 Alaska gubernatorial election were cast by mail, more than enough to be determinative.
Here’s an idea how to address the problem if Trump does follow through on his stated intention. In the states which mail out a ballot to every voter, how about creating rolling ballot boxes, electric-powered vans which roam each District in the weeks before election day and allow ballots which had been mailed out to every registered voter to be dropped into a secure collection box, thus not mailed in. Note, these vans won’t be delivering ballots to polling places on behalf of voters, prohibited in some states; they will actually be the moving ballot boxes into which the voters will deposit their own ballots.
This could be a great project for Elon Musk in promoting his electric autonomous vehicles: driverless voting vans which are summoned by a phone call from a registered voter. I mention Elon only because of his stated disapproval of some of Trump’s antics in the past, but this should incentivize the entire electric vehicle industry. Until the driverless technology is adopted nationwide, presumably volunteer driver-monitors would have to be recruited in each District to ride behind the steering wheel to take over in an emergency; these could be the same people presently recruited to staff fixed-location polling places but far fewer volunteers would be needed.
Every voter packet mailed out will presumably contain the usual mailing envelope inside of which are the ballot and ballot sleeve, plus a card with a phone number and voter I.D. number; the voter dials the telephone number on the voter envelope and enters the unique ballot number and signals either “immediate” or a set time for the van to arrive at his door. The technology for summoning electric vehicles already exists (viz Cruise and Waymo driverless electric taxis on the streets of San Francisco), and Elon and other electric vehicle producers could accomplish many goals at once: refining and promoting driverless vehicle technology; selling a ton of electric vehicles to local governments several very populous states at a presumably negotiated reasonable price considering the huge number of vehicles being sold; and sticking one giant thumb in Trump’s anti-electric vehicle eye. These vans need not stand idle and could easily be repurposed between elections; my suggestion -- free public dial-up transit for the elderly or disabled. [I came up with this plan in about five minutes, and the only credit I would like is for these trucks henceforth to be known as Arne Vans; thank you. I bet others can come up with even better ideas in a flash with the American electoral system on the line.]
If any states -- especially Red States -- actually do totally eliminate mailing of ballots in either direction, tons of lawsuits will need to be filed on behalf of elderly or infirm voters who don’t have a government-funded polling place nearby. Ditto for military and overseas voters. Clearly their constitutional and statutory voting rights are being impaired. This is exactly the kind of thing the ACLU stands prepared to do so will need vastly increased public support and many more volunteer lawyers, but it shouldn’t be hard to find the help needed. Make it more expensive for the Red States to deny voting rights than to just bite the bullet, defy Trump, and recognize mail-in balloting.
Organizers need to recruit a stand-by Republican candidate who supports free elections and mail-in voting as a potential primary challenger in every current Republican CD and make it clear to the incumbent Republican that he or she will face a primary challenge should Congress legislate to try to outlaw mail-in voting in those states where it’s presently legal. No matter how safe the district, no incumbent wants to waste precious time and resources fighting unnecessary intra-party challenges, even insubstantial ones.
The ad campaign to save democracy should begin now -- not in the heat of the 2026 mid-terms. Every single congressional Republican in marginal districts or in Blue States must be hounded to take a stand -- now, not waiting until 2026. And we must not settle for baloney answers or evasions; the pressure should be intense, like we’ve never mustered before.
I don’t know if any of this will work. Perhaps, after enough hullabaloo Trump will again pull a Gilda Radner/Emily Litella move, with a “never mind.” (TACO, as they say.) As always I end by asking that everyone believing in social democracy try to do something -- anything -- to make our voice heard. And please pass this essay along to anyone who might like to join our conversation.
Or maybe it is time to start looking at real estate in Portugal or Italy or Greece. Anybody got any good suggestions?
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