Oregon Senator Questions Trump’s Move to End Vote by Mail After Putin Meeting
Oregon Senator Ron Wyden is taken aback by President Donald Trump accepting advice from the Russian President on how to run U.S. elections.
Trump Plans to Stop Mail-In Voting
Wyden was reacting to a statement by President Trump that he plans to stop mail-in voting, a system which made Oregon the first state in the country to adopt the practice after a public vote in 1998.
The senator questioned how the President of the U.S. could take advice from Vladimir Putin on how to conduct elections.
Wyden states on social media that President Trump must ask Oregon voters and other states using the mail-in system how long it has been proven as a ‘secure, effective, and easy way for Americans to vote from home.’
Following his meeting with Putin in Alaska, the President announced on Monday that he will renew his efforts to end ‘highly inaccurate’ mail-in voting, as Putin had advised him to do, adding that the Russian leader believes the system was responsible for Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
Trump’s Presidential Campaign Embraced Mail-In Voting in the 2024 Election
Ironically, while Trump has been critical of mail-in voting since entering politics in 2015, his presidential campaign embraced the practice in the last election. His supporters were encouraged to use mail-in voting, especially constituents in North Carolina affected by Hurricane Helene.
At that time, Trump was quoted as saying…”absentee voting, early voting, and election day voting are all good options. Republicans must make a plan, register, and vote!”
President Trump has also vowed to get rid of ‘seriously controversial’ voting machines.
Several different machines are used in electronic voting in the U.S. These include touchscreens on which voters mark their choices, scanners that read paper ballots, adjudication machines to correct improperly filled-in items, and web servers that display voting tallies to the public.
Generally, Oregonians, Democrats and Republicans alike, support mail-in voting, a system believed responsible for the state’s high voter turnout.