President Donald Trump said he would sign an executive order to abolish mail-in voting, a move he said Russia’s President Vladimir Putin supported.
Mailing ballots is a popular option for voters to avoid waiting in line at polling places on Election Day. Election-security officials say voting has never been more secure and that the president has no role overseeing elections. But Trump has long railed against mail-in voting as vulnerable to fraud – despite election experts, including those in his first administration, who said mail-in voting is secure.
“We’re going to end mail-in voting," Trump told reporters Aug. 18 in the Oval Office. "It’s a fraud."
He reiterated arguments he made earlier in a social-media post. He argued elections would be more reliable if everyone voted in person with paper ballots rather than through machines.
“It’s very hard to cheat," Trump said of in-person voting.