WA leaders clap back at Trump’s latest threat to ban mail-in voting
President Donald Trump announced this week that he intends to sign an executive order to end mail-in voting — a statewide system that’s highly popular among Washington state voters.
The news doesn’t sit well with some Washington elected officials.
Trump said Monday that he’ll “lead a movement” to eliminate mail-in ballots and electronic voting machines. He called into question the accuracy of such machines, without providing evidence, and argued that they’re “very expensive.”
“WE WILL BEGIN THIS EFFORT, WHICH WILL BE STRONGLY OPPOSED BY THE DEMOCRATS BECAUSE THEY CHEAT AT LEVELS NEVER SEEN BEFORE, by signing an EXECUTIVE ORDER to help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm Elections,” Trump said in an Aug. 18 post on Truth Social.
But local and state officials argue that Washington’s elections are among the nation’s most secure.
Washington Attorney General Nick Brown reportedly intends to litigate any attacks against the state’s voting system, telling FOX 13 that the order follows Trump’s “public embrace of the Russian dictator’s advice on how to run elections.”
“This is the same president who is still lying about his 2020 election loss,” Brown’s statement continued. “Thankfully, we don’t take advice from election deniers, whether they’re in the Kremlin or the White House.”
U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat, also condemned the looming executive order in an Aug. 18 statement.
“We can’t be for suppressing the vote,” she said. “Vote-by-mail is the consistently most safe and trackable method of voting.”
Cantwell’s office said there’s no evidence indicating that voter fraud increases as a result of vote-by-mail. The Evergreen State began vote-by-mail in 1983, and in 2011 enacted universal vote-by-mail statewide.
McClatchy reached out to the Office of the Secretary of State to ask how Washington’s election system would manage such a seismic shift by next year’s midterms, plus what such an effort would cost.
The office replied that Trump hasn’t yet issued that executive order, so it isn’t possible to know its implications or scope. However, under the U.S. Constitution, the authority to regulate federal elections rests with state legislatures and Congress, the office said.
“Washington’s vote-by-mail system has long been safe, secure, and accessible, and it continues to serve our voters well,” the statement continued.
But other Washington politicians have been calling for election reforms.
The state’s Republican Party is leading a charge to require proof of citizenship to vote via an initiative to the Legislature. The party has also advocated for a return to same-day, in-person voting with limited absentee-ballot use.
Party Chairman Jim Walsh, who’s also a state representative, said in a Tuesday morning call that Washingtonians are accustomed to mail-in voting.
“So I imagine for Washington, the solution would be some hybrid form of in-person voting with generous absentee-ballot voting,” he said.
Cantwell wasn’t the only Washington senator to decry Trump’s election-system plans. Her counterpart, Democratic U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, shared a screenshot of the president’s post, calling it “unhinged.”
“WA state votes by mail in every election,” Murray wrote Monday on X. “We’ll keep it that way — thanks.”
This story was originally published August 21, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "WA leaders clap back at Trump’s latest threat to ban mail-in voting."
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