Experts warn Trump push 'could backfire on the Republican Party'

Tightening mail-in voting rules could wind up backfiring for its Republican backers, say lawmakers and experts who spoke to Bloomberg News.

President Donald Trump has been pushing hard on new mail-in voting rules, even as his GOP colleagues worry that it will hurt them most. They fear the measure could eliminate legitimate registered voters who help carry elections and prefer that option.

Trump favors limiting mail-in ballots with only a few exceptions, claiming fraudulent voting led to his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden. His push is backing the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE America Act (S. 1383; BGOV Bill Analysis). That would require voters to show documentary proof of citizenship to register.

About 64 percent of eligible voters participated in the 2024 presidential election and 46 percent for the 2022 midterms, according to the Pew Research Center. Of those, some 29 percent of voters cast ballots by mail in 2024, while nearly one-third did so in 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Right now, the legislation doesn’t specifically limit voting by mail. But attaching restrictions on mail-in voting is anticipated when the bill comes up in the Senate this week, Bloomberg reports. Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) is among those seeking an amendment to get “rid of this mass mail-in balloting scam,” as he terms it, with some allowances for military and elderly voters.

Bloomberg cites research that claims vote-by-mail laws don’t consistently favor one party over the other.

“Once they started mail-in voting, people just loved it,” Utah state Rep. Christine Watkins (R), who represents a rural district in the state, said to Bloomberg. “I know federal law trumps us—no pun intended—but people here wouldn’t like” getting rid of mail voting.

Several red states have also introduced bills tightening voting by mail rules. The Voting Rights Lab reports 43 restrictive bills have been proposed across 19 states this year.

Both parties are closely watching how changes to mail-voting rules could affect turnout in key districts, Bloomberg reports.

“Mail ballots can be the difference between winning and losing,” Matt Wylie, a GOP strategist based in South Carolina, said to the wire service. “If voters who normally cast ballots by mail have to show up on Election Day instead, fewer Republicans will. You risk losing seats you shouldn’t lose by going to war with something that can be a valuable tool.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said earlier this month that he plans to add “good amendments along the way” to SAVE America.

Thune claimed “ballot harvesting” is the “real threat,” referring to the practice of collecting and submitting ballots on behalf of other voters.

“As a general rule, if people are requesting ballots, and they’ve got legitimate reasons for requesting them, I think a lot of states use that process and use it pretty well,” Thune said.

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