President Donald Trump votes by mail for the second time this year after calling mail-in ballots ‘inherently corrupt’
Donald Trump has once again cast his ballot by mail in Florida, marking the second time this year he has used the practice despite repeatedly attacking it and calling mail-in ballots “inherently corrupt.”
Trump voted in Florida’s Republican primary, with Palm Beach County records showing he requested a mail ballot in late July and returned it before the primary, according to Politico.
How the vote was confirmed
Politico first reported the story, citing Palm Beach County voting records showing that Trump had requested and returned a mail ballot. The White House confirmed the president voted by mail in a statement to The New York Times. Multiple outlets, including PBS News, ABC News, The Hill, The Washington Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer, independently confirmed the report.
Newsweek attempted to access Trump’s mail-in voting record through the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections’ Office but received a message stating the record either could not be found or “is protected from public disclosure.” Alison Novoa, a spokesperson for the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections, confirmed details of the ballot request and return to PolitiFact.
A pattern going back years
The Florida primary vote was not an isolated instance. Trump previously voted by mail in a Florida special election, even as he publicly criticized the practice. At the time, Trump told White House reporters he chose to vote by mail because he felt he should be in Washington rather than “in the beautiful sunshine” at Mar-a-Lago, according to The Washington Times.
According to The New York Post and The Philadelphia Inquirer, Trump has now voted by mail in Palm Beach County at least three times: in Florida’s 2020 primary election, in a special election between Democrat Emily Gregory and Republican Jon Maples for a Florida statehouse seat and in the Republican primary. Records reviewed by Newsweek separately show Trump also voted absentee in New York’s 2018 midterm election and New York’s 2017 mayoral election.
Reaction from critics and fellow Republicans
Santiago Mayer, executive director of Voters of Tomorrow, criticized the president’s decision in an email to Newsweek. “What a joke. It’s almost like Donald Trump thinks we’re a bunch of idiots. The President whines about mail-in voting day after day, only to turn around and vote by mail himself,” Mayer said, adding that Trump has “repeatedly proven himself to be full of it” and calling him “a hypocrite at the highest level and a grave threat to this democracy.”
Former Republican New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, asked about the Politico report, said “optics matter” and called the mail vote a “bad move,” even while stating he supports Trump.
“I’m very much against mail-in voting myself,” Sununu said. “I think it’s ripe with a whole lot of problems. We don’t have it in New Hampshire, we have the highest voter turnout in the country. So no, you can’t go around railing on mail-in voting and then go ahead and do it yourself. It kind of deflates the argument a little bit.”
White House response
White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales issued a statement to Newsweek, The Hill, ABC News and other outlets defending the president’s vote.
“As President Trump has said, the SAVE America Act has commonsense exceptions for Americans to use mail-in ballots for illness, disability, military or travel – but universal mail-in voting should not be allowed because it’s highly susceptible to fraud,” Wales said. “As everyone knows, the President is a resident of Palm Beach and participates in Florida elections, but he obviously primarily lives at the White House in Washington, D.C. This is a non-story.”
The Hill reported that Wales provided the identical statement when Trump last voted by mail. A separate White House official told Newsweek that the president had not traveled to Florida in the months preceding the primary.
What Trump has said about mail voting
Trump described mail-in ballots as “inherently corrupt” while advocating restrictions that would generally limit their use to circumstances such as illness, disability, military deployment or travel. PBS News noted that Trump has repeatedly spread misinformation about voting by mail and fraud, including statements that independent fact-checkers rated “Pants on Fire” for their inaccuracy.
Fact-checkers have found no evidence of widespread fraud associated with mail voting. A 2025 Brookings Institution study estimated roughly four cases of mail-voting fraud for every 10 million mail ballots cast. About 30% of ballots in the 2024 presidential election were cast by mail, according to federal data.
The SAVE America Act
Trump has used multiple strategies to pressure Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, formally known as the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act. The legislation would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections and government-issued voter identification to cast a ballot.
His efforts have included attaching the voting measure to a sweeping defense spending package, urging Senate Republicans to weaken or bypass the filibuster to secure passage with a simple majority and publicly pressuring lawmakers through posts on Truth Social by framing the measure as a top legislative priority.
PBS News reported that the House passed the SAVE America Act in February, but the bill has since stalled in the Senate. Many Republicans who have won elections with support from absentee voters have been reluctant to scrap a system governed by individual state laws. The Hill also reported that Trump signed an executive order aimed at restricting mail-in voting nationally.
Supporters argue the SAVE America Act would strengthen election integrity, while opponents contend it could make voting harder for eligible citizens without significantly addressing noncitizen voting, which is already illegal in federal elections and exceedingly rare according to research cited by multiple outlets.
In a Truth Social post about the legislation, Trump wrote: “Earlier this month, India’s Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, asked our Administration — How can you have Elections in the U.S. without a valid Photo ID? India’s last Election had 646,000,000 Voters! Less than 1% voted by mail and every single Voter had to have a VALID Photo Identity Document. We need to pass THE SAVE AMERICA ACT, now! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
The ballot Trump cast
Florida’s Republican primary included a crowded contest for governor. Trump-endorsed Rep. Byron Donalds was widely viewed as the frontrunner in the race, according to Yahoo News and the Election Law Blog.
Donalds faced a field that included Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, former Florida House Speaker Paul Renner and investor James Fishback, who has been a vocal critic of Donalds and has embraced far-right rhetoric on Israel and other topics, according to the Election Law Blog.