"Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating." For years, Donald Trump warned against voting by mail. Ahead of the 2026 midterms, he is now telling Republicans the opposite. And the people who seem to have listened to his warnings most are his opponents.
Here is what changed, what the numbers say, and why trust in a voting channel is so hard to win back.
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For years, Donald Trump has claimed that mail-in voting can't be trusted. Before the 2026 midterms, he even tried to restrict it.
The Supreme Court rejected the attempt to restrict mail-in voting for the midterms. Voting by mail remains available for the election on 3 November 2026.
According to an NBC News poll, the share of Democrats planning to vote by mail dropped by 11 points compared with 2024. Many of them now vote in person because of the warnings: they simply didn't trust that their mail ballot would still arrive in time.
Among Republicans, the figure barely changed, at around 16 percent.
Now it gets even better. On the campaign trail, at a rally in Wasilla, Alaska, on 13 October 2026, Trump told Republicans: "Vote early, vote by mail, or vote on election day."
And he votes by mail himself, in Florida.
The numbers show how quickly a voting channel can lose trust, and how slowly it comes back. Years of warnings can't be undone with one sentence at a rally.
The same applies to every election, whether it's a national vote or a board election in an association: people use a voting method when they trust it. That trust comes from transparency, verifiable results and a secret ballot that is genuinely protected. How this works for online voting is explained in our section on security and data protection in online voting.
Election day is 3 November. Do you vote by mail or in person?
No. The Supreme Court rejected the attempt to restrict mail-in voting before the midterms.
According to an NBC News poll, the share of Democrats planning to vote by mail dropped by 11 points compared with 2024. Among Republicans it barely changed, at around 16 percent.
Election day is 3 November 2026.
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