President Donald Trump, who is in the midst of pressuring senators to curb the use of mail-in voting, voted by mail ballot in Tuesday’s special election in Palm Beach County, Florida.
The Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections website indicates that Trump, who is registered to vote at his Mar-a-Lago estate on Palm Beach, “voted by Mail Ballot” in a special election between Democrat Emily Gregory and Republican Jon Maples for a seat in the state legislature. A spokesperson for the office confirmed to The Washington Post that the “information [on the site] is accurate.”
Trump’s decision to vote by mail comes as he pushes the Save America Act — a sweeping bill to reform nationwide balloting, including restrictions on mail-in voting — and derides vote-by-mail at events.
The president has long criticized mail-in voting, despite studies showing that about 1 in 3 Americans voted by mail in 2024. Much of Trump’s antipathy for vote-by-mail stems from his 2020 loss, when he felt overly permissive election laws allowed many Americans to vote by mail without a specific reason.
“Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating,” Trump said Monday during a law enforcement task force meeting in Memphis. “I call it mail-in cheating, and we’ve got to do something about it all.”
Trump did not have to vote by mail. He was in Palm Beach over the weekend, and early in-person voting was available through Sunday.
Last year, Trump wrote on social media that he was “going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS,” and falsely claimed that the United States was the only country that uses the practice.
“ELECTIONS CAN NEVER BE HONEST WITH MAIL IN BALLOTS/VOTING,” he wrote.
Olivia Wales, a White House spokesperson, said Monday that Trump using a mail ballot in the special election was “a non-story” because it’s common knowledge that Trump votes in Florida but lives in Washington, D.C.
“As President Trump has said, the Save America Act has commonsense exceptions for Americans to use mail-in ballots for illness, disability, military or travel — but universal mail-in voting should not be allowed because it’s highly susceptible to fraud,” Wales added.
This is not the first time Trump has voted by mail while deriding the practice. “I can vote by mail,” he told reporters in 2020 when pushed on how he reconciles his use of a practice he criticizes. “I’m allowed to.”
Trump endorsed Maples in the contest, something the former star basketball player at Palm Beach Atlantic University has called “surreal.”
Trump is “the most transformative leader I’ve seen in my lifetime. The positive impacts of his presidency will be felt for generations,” Maples wrote on Instagram in response to the endorsement.
The district, which includes much of coastal Palm Beach County, leans Republican. Mike Caruso, the former incumbent who vacated the office to become Palm Beach County Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller, won by 19 percentage points in 2024.
Democrats, however, have overperformed in elections like this since the start of Trump’s second term, consistently outdoing what the district’s makeup would suggest. A recent upset win in a Texas state Senate contest further emboldened Democrats heading into the midterms.
Asked about Trump voting by mail, Gregory noted the ongoing “affordability crisis” and said, “Voting by mail is safe, secure, and a great way to exercise this important right without disrupting their ability to put food on the table and provide for their families.”
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