We've reached the stage in our election cycle when Republicans dance the GOP two-step for mail ballots.
President Donald Trump, having spent a solid decade making baseless claims and spouting lies about voter fraud via the use of mail ballots, is now in a furious lather because most of the U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 14 rejected his unconstitutional bid to federalize election administration
for the Nov. 3 midterms.Trump wailed in a Sept. 15 social media post that ruling on "our totally corrupt and out of control mail-in voting 'disaster' " makes America "the laughing stock all over the World."
Here's the thing.
I also heard from the Republican National Committee on Sept. 14, but not to decry the majority of the Supreme Court justices following
the law. Nope, the RNC wanted me to know that my "mail-in ballot is AVAILABLE TODAY."
That's what the RNC advised in an email, encouraging me to "request your mail-in ballot NOW" because "the elections are right around the corner."
That email had a link to an RNC website – swampthevote.com – offering state-by-state resources about voting options, how to request a ballot, and how to check if you are registered to vote.
Does Trump know Republicans have been pushing mail-in voting?
That's a good thing. It is standard get-out-the-vote political tactics, using information and encouragement. It's exactly what political parties should be doing right now, with the midterm elections just seven weeks away.
But stop for a second to examine the shameless hypocrisy of the RNC, which always marches in lockstep with Trump as he lies about mail ballots and voter fraud. That lazy duplicity makes sense, I guess, if you know that Trump himself has voted for years with a mail ballot and did again in August for Florida's primary election.
This mail-ballot doublespeak is nothing new for the RNC, the Republican Party, Trump or his allies.
Republican Party leaders pushed for voters to use mail ballots back when I covered the 2020 presidential election in Pennsylvania, while also warning that they would be used for voter fraud.
Trump, who lost in 2020, then tried to use mail ballot use in Pennsylvania and other states to unsuccessfully justify overturning that election.
In June 2023, well ahead of the 2024 presidential election, the RNC launched "Bank Your Vote," which the party called "a nationwide campaign focused on maximizing pre-Election Day voting."
The RNC news release for that effort assiduously avoided the word "mail" while talking about ballots but promised "digital reminders from the RNC on all applicable pre-Election Day voting options."
In other words, mail ballots. And it wasn't just the RNC.
Don't forget that Repubilcans still support Trump's voter fraud lies
Trump appeared in an August 2023 RNC Bank Your Vote commercial, asking voters to "sign up and commit to voting early."
House Speaker Mike Johnson, who enthusiastically amplifies Trump's lies about voter fraud, appeared in a February 2024 video posted to social media by the RNC, in which he said, "I'm asking you to take your pledge to bank your vote and cast your vote before Election Day."
This is the same House speaker who, in May 2024, defended Trump's voter fraud lies by claiming that the lack of proof amounted to justification for federal overreach.
"We all know intuitively that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections," Johnson said then. "But it's not been something that is easily provable. We don't have that number."
Here are the numbers that really motivate this hypocrisy – Democratic voters are just more likely than Republican voters to use mail ballots. There's nothing corrupt about that. It's just statistics.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Election Data & Science Lab, in a report released last year about voting in 2024, found a continuing partisan divide in the use of mail ballots, with 37% of Democrats using them, compared with 24% of Republicans.
That was a decrease from the 2020 presidential election, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when 60% of Democrats used mail ballots, compared with 32% of Republicans.
As I've said before, Trump wants to pick the voters in the November midterms, rather than having the voters pick their representatives in Congress. He and the RNC want Republicans to vote by mail, but not Democrats.
That's why Trump lies about mail ballots driving voter fraud, while the RNC urges Republican voters to use mail ballots, just like Trump.
Follow USA TODAY columnist Chris Brennan on Bluesky, @bychrisbrennan.bsky.social, and on X, @ByChrisBrennan. Sign up for his weekly newsletter, Translating Politics, here.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The RNC urges mail-in voting as Trump melts down about it | Opinion
