President Donald Trump continued on Monday to sow unfounded doubt about mail-in voting forward of the midterm elections, regardless of encouraging Republicans to vote any approach they will.
Trump’s remarks got here amid a gathering on the White Home with the 2020 election denier Tina Peters on Monday, sources confirmed to ABC Information. Peters, the previous county clerk of Mesa County, Colorado, was convicted on state fees in a scheme to breach the state’s voting methods as she hunted for proof of election fraud in 2020.
The state’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, earlier this 12 months granted Peters clemency following repeated calls from the president urging the state to let her go. Peters was launched from jail in June.
President Donald Trump gestures as he speaks to reporters earlier than boarding Marine One on the South Garden of the White Home, Monday, Oct. 5, 2026, in Washington.
Tom Brenner/AP Picture
Throughout a gaggle on the White Home South Garden en path to Nebraska on Monday, the place he attended a political rally, Trump pushed again when requested why he was telling Republicans to vote by mail regardless of his repeated assertions that it’s fraudulent.
“No, vote by mail or vote in particular person. I might slightly have a vote in particular person. However they will vote by mail if they need, as a result of we appear to have no selection,” Trump mentioned, occurring to assert, with out offering proof, that mail-in voting is rife with dishonest.
“What we’re involved about is there appears to be lots of- not appears to be, there’s quite a lot of dishonest in vote by mail,” Trump mentioned, including a directive to reporters that they should study elections in California.
“Trump is mendacity about California once more,” Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press workplace mentioned again in June after Trump made baseless accusations of fraud within the state’s major election.
Trump has inspired voters to forged their ballots by mail forward of the essential midterm cycle, which can decide management of Congress and, finally, the path of his remaining two years as president.
President Donald Trump throws a pen into the gang after he signed an government order throughout a marketing campaign rally at Pinnacle Financial institution Expo Heart in Grand Island, Nebraska, on October 5, 2026.
Kent Nishimura/AFP through Getty Pictures
“Vote early, vote by mail or vote in particular person on Election Day, November third, so we are able to defeat the unconventional left Dumocrats in a midterm victory that’s too huge to rig,” Trump mentioned in a video posted to his social media on October 3.
Trump has voted by mail twice in Florida elections this 12 months, together with within the state’s latest major election. He’s additionally voted early in elections whereas he was in workplace, together with in the course of the Florida Republican major in 2024.
His administration this 12 months has been concerned in authorized challenges to mail-in poll guidelines, together with the submitting final month of an emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court docket looking for to right away implement new U.S. Postal Service mail poll guidelines for November. The Supreme Court docket rejected that attraction, clearing the best way for states to proceed sending out mail-in ballots as deliberate forward of the midterms.
Trump seized on Monday upon an incident in Maricopa County, Arizona, the place officials said Sunday {that a} contractor unintentionally mailed 3,126 early ballots six days earlier than they have been purported to be despatched out.
In an announcement, the Maricopa County Recorder’s Workplace mentioned no voters have been adversely affected and “upon session with the Maricopa County Lawyer’s Workplace, it was decided that the ballots stay legitimate and don’t have to be voided or reissued.”
Nonetheless, the president, who was responding to a reporter’s query, mentioned that the nation ought to “be ashamed of themselves.”
“So Maricopa simply despatched out hundreds of ballots in error. Maricopa County in Arizona. They usually need to be ashamed of themselves,” Trump mentioned.
“By the best way, there have been no errors. You recognize that, proper?” he mentioned.
He added: “Maricopa is a really, very dishonest county.”
