The White House said Tuesday that Trump's ire is at states using universal mail-in voting, not individual instances of voters needing accommodations to vote by mail. A spokeswoman pushed back specifically at the idea that his voting practice contradicts his push for new federal voting rules.
“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,” said White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales in a statement.
A report by the Brookings Institution published in 2025 found that cases of mail voting fraud occurred in only 0.000043% of total mail ballots cast, or about four cases out of every 10 million mail votes.
Wales added: “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.”
Nonetheless, Trump has in the last week called mail-in voting “cheating" and “corrupt as hell.” He is urging Congress to pass the SAVE Act. The sweeping bill would bar universal mail ballots and, as Wales noted, limit the options to a select few voters such as those with disabilities, military commitments or who are traveling on Election Day. The measure faces steep odds in the closely divided Senate even with the president's pressure.
Trump has fixated on mail ballots since he began falsely claiming that his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden was the result of fraud. Multiple U.S. courts and Trump's own attorney general have found no evidence of fraud that affected the outcome, despite the COVID-19 pandemic increasing the share of the electorate that cast mail ballots that year.
“We’re the only country in the world that does it that way. Corrupt as hell,” Trump said last week at the White House when hosting Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin.
Dozens of countries, including European democracies that are traditional U.S. allies, use some form of mail-in voting.
Trump said last week that the SAVE Act was the “biggest thing” pending in Washington, even as Congress and administration grapple with the Iran war and a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.
Last August, Trump used a White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to blast mail voting.
“We’re going to start with an executive order that’s being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail-in ballots because they’re corrupt,” Trump said. “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.”
The president, who changed his official personal residence and voter registration from New York to Florida during his first term, does not have a standing vote-by-mail request for all elections, according to the county records. That means he has to request a mail ballot for any individual election.
The ballot today includes Florida state House District 87 and Senate District 14.
Trump offered an endorsement late Monday in the House contest via his Truth Social platform.
“There is a very important Special Election tomorrow, Tuesday, March 24th, for Florida State House District 87 in beautiful Palm Beach County. ... TO ALL GREAT PATRIOTS IN FLORIDA STATE HOUSE DISTRICT 87: GET OUT AND VOTE FOR JON MAPLES! Polls are open from 7:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M.” Trump wrote, without mentioning that he had voted by mail or at all.
The Florida election comes one day after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a Mississippi case questioning whether states can count mail-in ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but not received until later. Trump has criticized those allowances in 14 states and the District of Columbia.