The president has made passing the SAVE Act, which would reduce mail-in voting, a top priority.
Could the SAVE America Act actually pass Congress?
President Trump said the SAVE Act would “guarantee” Republican victory in the midterm elections. What does the bill include, and is there a chance it will actually pass?
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump voted by mail in the March 24 special election in Palm Beach, Florida, even though he has long attacked mail-in voting as a risk of fraud and wants to ban it broadly across the country as part of his pending election security bill, the Save America Act.
President Trump has stepped up his attacks in recent days, claiming that mail-in voting is a way for Democrats to steal the election.
On March 24, at the swearing-in ceremony for new Secretary of Homeland Security Mark Wayne Mullin, President Trump said, “Ideally, we would eliminate mail-in voting because there is so much corruption.”
He also wants the Supreme Court to uphold a Republican effort to block states from counting late-arriving mail-in ballots, a decision that would lead to stricter voting rules across the country.
According to the Palm Beach County website, Palm Beach County voter records show Trump voted by mail. The White House did not dispute this in an email exchange with USA TODAY. Early voting for the two state House seats continued until March 22, when the president was still staying at his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Palm Beach.
Trump has voted by mail in the past, including in 2020.
President Trump used his “Truth” social media platform on the night of March 23 to urge South Floridians to get out and vote, including a link to find their local polling place. He also endorsed John Maples over Democrat Emily Gregory in the 87th District of Palm Beach County, Florida.
“While he had ample opportunity to conveniently vote in person during Florida’s early voting period, he chose to vote by mail instead, just as tens of millions of other Americans do every election cycle,” David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, told USA TODAY.
The SAVE Act, officially known as the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility Act, is a huge priority for President Trump, who has vowed to stop signing virtually all legislation until Congress passes it.
Republican efforts to pass it face stiff opposition from Democrats. Additionally, while Republicans, who hold majorities in both houses of Congress, generally support the bill, many members are reluctant to eliminate the Senate filibuster and the de facto majority requirement for passing legislation, as President Trump has called for.
“As President Trump has stated, the SAVE America Act provides common-sense exceptions for Americans to vote by mail due to illness, disability, military, or travel, but universal mail-in voting carries too high a risk of fraud and should not be allowed,” White House press secretary Olivia Wales said in a March 24 statement to USA TODAY.
The White House said it did not respond to several requests for comment on which exceptions to the proposed SAVE Act President Trump is using for mail-in voting.
Years of attacks on mail-in voting
President Trump has long focused on how ‘universal’ mail-in voting is poses what he calls the greatest danger crime of voter fraud, threat to democracy.
He has also made baseless claims of voter fraud, claiming the 2020 presidential election he lost to Joe Biden was stolen from him.
Dozens of U.S. judges, even President Trump’s attorney general at the time, William Barr, have found no evidence of widespread fraud.
Florida law allows for no-excuse mail-in voting, allowing any registered voter to request and submit a ballot by mail. Trump has voted absentee and by mail multiple times in recent elections, including while living in Florida after leaving the White House.
Will it disenfranchise millions of voters?
Democrats and voting rights groups have accused Trump and Republicans of trying to use the SAVE Act to disenfranchise tens of millions of voters in midterm elections that could determine who controls the House and Senate during the final two years of Trump’s second term.
“To all the great patriots of Florida…votes are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.,” Trump wrote.
But President Trump did not say anything about how he voted by mail.
At an event on March 23, President Trump appealed to the lawmakers considering the bill to pass it as soon as possible. “I urge Republican senators to do so immediately,” Trump said. “Don’t worry about Easter, let’s go home. In fact, make this for Jesus, okay?”
Despite pressure from President Trump, the bill has a good chance of passing in the narrow Senate.
After news broke that President Trump had voted by mail again, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) denounced President Trump’s vote by mail as “complete fraud.”
“Never believe anything he says about election integrity,” Jeffries said in a Facebook post.
President Trump has also repeatedly falsely claimed that the United States is the only country that uses mail-in voting and that other countries have abandoned it due to fraud. Many countries, including Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom, allow and even encourage people to mail their ballots.
