President Donald Trump is talking about changing voting laws again, citing a recent conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
After a summit in Alaska last week, Trump said Putin talked with him about election integrity. He then posted on Truth Social about plans to change voting machines before next year’s midterms and again raised the issue on Monday while meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders at the White House — ostensibly to talk about peace in Ukraine.
But what exactly did Putin tell Trump, and what is Trump now trying to do? And were either man’s claims accurate? Here are some answers.
What are Russian elections like?
Multiple outside groups have labeled Russian elections as illegitimate. In 2023, Russian Election Monitor, a group of European scholars, former and active politicians and public officials, found “a serious deterioration” in voting rights in Russia. The group cited last-minute changes to laws, attempts to complicate election observation, a lack of free debate, pressure on candidates and voters and a lack of independent election commissions. Some parts of Russia use electronic voting systems, which have been found to be vulnerable to manipulation and coercion. The European Parliament condemned Russian elections as “illegitimate and undemocratic.”
Why would Putin, of all people, lecture the U.S. on voting?
We don’t know for sure. But as a former KGB agent, Putin was trained on how to emotionally manipulate people he’s dealing with. (He famously brought his black Labrador to a meeting with then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is afraid of dogs.) Telling Trump that the 2020 election was rigged against him seems like an obvious way to get on his good side.
What did Putin say?
According to Trump, “he said ‘your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting.’ He said, ‘Mail-in voting, every election —no country has mail-in voting. It’s impossible to have mail-in voting and have honest elections.’ And he said that to me because we talked about 2020. He said, ‘You won that election by so much.’”
Is any of that true?
No.
- According to a 2024 count by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 34 countries have mail-in voting, including Canada, Denmark and Germany.
- An analysis of all known voter fraud cases in the U.S. from 2000 to 2012 found only 491 cases of mail voter fraud — during a period in which literally billions of ballots were cast.
- Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Judges found various claims made by Trump and his allies to be without merit in more than 60 cases, and a statistical analysis by researchers from Harvard and Cambridge University found no evidence to back up the claims.
What did Trump say he would do next?
Trump said he was going to “lead a movement” to get rid of mail-in ballots and what he called “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.” He said he would sign an executive order to “help bring HONESTY” to the 2026 midterm elections.
What does he mean, exactly?
Honestly, it’s hard to say. At one point he said he was required to give his license plate number to vote, which is not true. But in past remarks, Trump has called for nearly all voting to be done on paper ballots, counted by hand, on Election Day, with the winner declared on election night.
There are few problems with those proposals:
The answer here should be a clear no, but we live in unprecedented times. Under the U.S. Constitution, elections are handled at the local level according to state laws, though Congress can set minimum national standards for elections. The federal role typically involves giving guidance to elections officials and offering grants to upgrade equipment. At a practical level, making the kinds of massive changes to election law that Trump envisions would be expensive and take time to set up, even if every local and state official went along with it. The midterms are in about 14 months, which means there’s a very narrow window for any changes to be made, as officials would need to buy, install and test machines and hire and train appropriate staff. Trump did not say he would ask Congress to pass a law, which would be the only way to appropriate money, so it appears that he may simply try to order the states to make these changes by executive order, which would mean a flood of political pushback and lawsuits that would only shorten the amount of time available. As an example, one reason Louisiana has not replaced its outdated voting machines is that it would cost $105 million. In his Truth Social post, Trump argued that states are “merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government” in counting votes and “must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them.” Suffice it to say that this is not the traditional mainstream view of the U.S. Constitution, checks and balances or federalism. Sure. State and federal lawmakers could help replace those voting machines in Louisiana and parts of other states that don’t have a voter-verified paper trail. More states could join a consortium of 25 states plus D.C. that shares voter registration information to track people who moved. State lawmakers could change laws that prevent officials from prepping early ballots to be counted, which would speed up results on election night. A major political figure could stop using his bully pulpit to baselessly attack the integrity of the U.S. voting system.
Ryan Teague Beckwith is a newsletter editor for MS NOW. He has previously worked for such outlets as Time magazine and Bloomberg News. He teaches journalism at Georgetown University’s School of Continuing Studies and is the creator of Your First Byline. 
Could Trump really change voting laws by executive order?
Are there any problems with U.S. voting that could be addressed?
Any other changes?
