There’s a lot to dislike about America’s patchwork system of voting laws. Anyone who’s survived the heartburn of the last several elections is probably tired of the endless string of irregularities, controversies, and partisan battles over perceived vulnerabilities in the process. After a volatile 2016, 2020, and 2024, it’s no wonder that Donald Trump is on the warpath to close loopholes he thinks could’ve tainted the outcome. And while there’s a lot of grassroots support for cracking down on the opportunities for fraud and abuse, the truth is, the president isn’t necessarily the man for the job.

While Trump has always railed against things like mail-in ballots, the president’s outrage reached a fever pitch after his sit-down with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who seemed to persuade Trump that America’s 2020 election was rigged because states didn’t require in-person voting. In an agitated Truth Social post, the president declared, “I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we’re at it, Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES, which cost Ten Times more than accurate and sophisticated Watermark Paper, which is faster, and leaves NO DOUBT, at the end of the evening, as to who WON, and who LOST, the Election.”

In a rush of emphatic all-caps, the president added, “ELECTIONS CAN NEVER BE HONEST WITH MAIL IN BALLOTS/VOTING, and everybody, IN PARTICULAR THE DEMOCRATS, KNOWS THIS. I, AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, WILL FIGHT LIKE HELL TO BRING HONESTY AND INTEGRITY BACK TO OUR ELECTIONS. … REMEMBER, WITHOUT FAIR AND HONEST ELECTIONS, AND STRONG AND POWERFUL BORDERS, YOU DON’T HAVE EVEN A SEMBLANCE OF A COUNTRY,” Trump added.

Conservatives have long had a hate relationship with mail-in ballots, a form of voting that’s ripe for manipulation. For that reason, Cleta Mitchell, senior legal fellow at the Conservative Partnership Institute, sympathizes with the president’s rant. “What began as a way to assist those people who needed help because they couldn’t go to the polls in person has become a nightmare,” she told Family Research Council’s Jody Hice on “Washington Watch” Tuesday. “And that’s truly what it is. It is a nightmare. And anyone who thinks that you vote by mail, and everything’s fine, you would be shocked.”

She ticked through a laundry list of ways those ballots are susceptible to corruption, everything from how many people handle them to the lack of security around drop boxes and the fact that “there’s very little verification” of the person submitting the ballot. “There’s no way to secure the vote,” she reiterated. Mitchell pointed to a report just this week in the New York Post of a Michigan City Council member who was caught on camera literally stuffing an election drop box with absentee ballots days before he won his reelection. According to the investigation, Abu Musa would have placed fifth without cheating.

As intentional as elected officials have been over the years to build in safeguards that protect the average voter, the reality is this, Cleta warned: “If you’re not voting in the polling place, there’s no way to protect the secret ballot.” So, in her opinion, “The president is 100% right. And the main thing that he said is he’s going to start a movement. And I think that is the most important thing, because he will raise the issue and give us a chance to talk about all the problems, because all we’ve heard [is the] Left saying, ‘It’s great!’”

But starting a movement is different than changing the law, which legal scholars have been quick to point out. While Trump can — and probably will — issue an executive order restricting mail-in ballots and voting machines, he can’t change how people vote unilaterally. The Constitution is clear that each state has the right to manage its own elections. “[S]hort of a constitutional amendment,” NRO’s Andrew McCarthy pointed out, “the only valid way of mandating my preferences, Trump’s preferences, or anyone else’s preferences would be legislation at the state or federal level. The president has nothing of consequence to say about it.”

Of course, Trump believes that he holds some sway over federal election law, which he tried to invoke with his March order “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.” Even that, McCarthy warns, runs afoul of the Founders’ intent, which was to keep the president out of election regulation.

That doesn’t mean Trump doesn’t have a valid point about the dangers of mail-in ballots. “If I had my druthers,” McCarthy admitted, “we’d return to a default requirement that people vote in-person, at the appropriate polling precinct, on the same day. I’m not against all innovation: We now have a national population of over 330 million, and well over 150 million Americans voted in the last national election; if that’s too many to get it done on a single day, I’d be fine with having a two- or three-day in-person voting period. And note that I said a default in-person voting mandate. The traditional availability of absentee voting for extraordinary excuses should be continued.” Still, he adds, “These extraordinary excuses, however, should be carefully policed.”

Others, like his editor Rich Lowry, think Republicans should come to grips with the fact that mail-in voting “[isn’t] going anywhere.” Instead, they should focus their attention on beating Democrats at their own game. Lowry reminds people that in 2024, “Republicans made a concerted effort to make up ground and succeeded. They went from 24 percent of the mail vote in the must-win swing state of Pennsylvania in 2020, to 33 percent in 2024, and they outpaced Democrats in mail-in balloting in Arizona.”

If the times are changing, then conservatives need to change with them. To that point, Lowry writes, the real question isn’t whether this trend is staying or going, “but whether Republicans, too, will take advantage of it.”

In the meantime, the GOP has taken extraordinary strides in red states to overhaul the voting systems and tighten up any lax processes. Hundreds of election integrity laws were proposed after the fireworks of 2020, resulting in a nationwide wave of voter ID requirements, shorter early voting windows, restrictions on absentee ballot requests, deadlines for counting mail-in ballots, strict rules for ballot drop boxes, and a slew of other positive reforms to protect Americans’ votes. The RNC dispatched an army of attorneys and poll watchers last November too, increasing the odds of a fair and honest election.

Still, whatever form the president’s crusade takes, experts think Trump is right to take on mail-in ballots, especially, FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter told The Washington Stand, “since recent election cycles have exposed a host of issues.” Today, he shakes his head, “anyone can vote by mail for any reason. This has brought confusion regarding the chain of custody of mail-in ballots, drop boxes, voter identification, ballots arriving after election day, voters voting in multiple states, and more, all stemming from this change.”

And even if he can’t make sweeping changes to the way Americans vote, “there’s a lot the president can do,” Mitchell acknowledged. “I think that starting the movement is important.” Part of the problem, Cleta explains, is that “Congress has broken our elections in a lot of ways. And Congress needs to fix it.”

In the meantime, “the president doesn’t have the power to wave a wand and fix everything,” she agrees. “But what he has done is through his leadership and his public statements, it gives us the opportunity to [lean into] that and say, ‘Okay, here’s how we do this.’”