The Trump administration is using a 20-year-old report to misrepresent former President Jimmy Carter’s views on mail-in and absentee ballots as it pushes for federal legislation that would impose strict new proof-of-citizenship and photo ID requirements for voting ahead of the midterm elections.
On two successive days this week, President Donald Trump and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt invoked the 2005 report by the Commission on Federal Election Reform while advocating for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE America Act. The commission’s co-chairs were Carter, a Democrat, and former Secretary of State James Baker, who held senior government positions in the administrations of three Republican presidents — Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
Trump and Leavitt falsely claimed that Carter was against the use of mail-in and absentee ballots because they can lead to fraud, a mischaracterization of the report’s conclusions.
Here’s a closer look at the facts.
TRUMP, at the Republican Members Issues Conference on Monday: “Jimmy Carter, the best thing he ever did, he headed a commission after he was president. It was the single best thing. And he did a thing on mail-in ballots. He said mail-in ballots should not be allowed because they are inherently dishonest.”
LEAVITT, at a White House press briefing on Tuesday: “The bipartisan 2005 report of the Commission on Federal Election Reform, shared by, of all people, former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker, concluded that, quote, ‘absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.’”
THE FACTS: Carter supported mail-in voting and absentee ballots, according to statements by the late president, his grandson Jason Carter and The Carter Center. The 2005 report stated that absentee and mail-in ballots can create opportunities for fraud, but also suggested ways to reduce that risk and recommended further research on the issue. Experts say there is no evidence that mail-in and absentee voting leads to widespread fraud, either now or 20 years ago.
“My grandfather supported mail-in voting — so much so that he used it himself,” Jason Carter, chair of The Carter Center’s board of trustees, told The Associated Press in a statement on Wednesday. “Any claim to the contrary unnecessarily sows doubt in election integrity and undermines voter confidence in a consequential election year.”
President Carter himself publicly endorsed mail-in voting and absentee ballots in 2020, a view that continued until his death in 2024.
“I urge political leaders across the country to take immediate steps to expand vote-by-mail and other measures to help protect the core of American democracy — the right of our citizens the vote,” he said in May 2020 amid concerns about elections during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Four months later, in response to news reports about his opinion of absentee ballots, Carter said: “I approve the use of absentee ballots and have been using them for more than five years.”
Voting by mail remains popular with voters of both major parties. During the 2024 election, which Trump won, roughly 30% of voters cast mailed ballots, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. That was higher than pre-pandemic levels, when about a quarter of voters used mailed ballots. Three of the four states where use of mailed ballots was higher than in 2020 are controlled politically by Republicans — Indiana, South Dakota and Utah.
Trump himself has voted by mail in his home state of Florida.
A misrepresented report
The Commission on Federal Election Reform, organized by American University’s Center for Democracy and Election Management and funded by a group of philanthropic organizations, published a report, “Building Confidence in U.S. Elections,” in 2005. Among its findings were that “absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud” and that voting by mail is “likely to increase the risks of fraud and of contested elections” in certain states.
However, the report did not discourage the use of mail-in and absentee ballots. Rather, it included suggestions for how to reduce the risk of fraud.
The report made three recommendations related to absentee ballots and voter registration fraud: that jurisdictions only allow specific people to handle ballots, and prohibit candidates or party workers from picking up and delivering absentee ballots; that states should pass legislation to minimize fraud from payments for voter registration, absentee ballot or signature collection efforts; and that states should not discourage legal voter registration or get-out-the-vote work.
It also suggested that states should implement better safeguards for ballot integrity and encouraged further research on the pros and cons of mail-in and early voting. The report noted that in Oregon, which had been using vote-by-mail for seven years, there was “little evidence of fraud.”
“The administration’s claims about President Carter’s views on mail-in voting are not true,” the Carter Center said in a statement this week to The Associated Press.
It said the claims do not “consider the rest of the report’s findings or President Carter’s acknowledgment of the safeguards that have emerged in the 20+ years since this report came out.”
No rampant fraud
Mail-in and absentee voting does not cause widespread election fraud, according to experts, even as their use has increased in the past two decades, from roughly 13% of voters in 2004 to nearly a third of all ballots cast two years ago.
“There’s no evidence that mail-in voting fraud was rampant then, and it’s not rampant now,” said Mark Lindeman, policy and strategy director at Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group focused on election technology. “Mail voting has become more common and more mature. So, over that period of time, states have learned from each other — best practices for not only avoiding fraud, but just generally administering mail balloting well.”
For example, ballot tracking, curing ballots that had initially been rejected, and the ability to identify and address duplicate voter registrations have improved.
Trump has flip-flopped on mail-in voting over the years. He preemptively argued that mail balloting was bad months before voting even began in the 2020 election. At the same time, he encouraged voters in Florida — a state he won — to vote by mail. Trump and other Republicans then blamed mail-in voting for his loss.
The GOP, and sometimes even Trump, urged voters to cast their ballots by mail ahead of the 2024 election when it was seen as a necessary course correction during a tight race.
Asked whether Trump stands by the statements he and Leavitt made, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said: “President Trump and Karoline are completely right — and Karoline read a direct quote from the report during her briefing.”
She added that the press release The Carter Center published in May 2020 that included Carter’s endorsement of mail-in voting “does not invalidate the findings” of the 2005 report.
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