Trump opposes mail-in voting, but many Americans are voting by mail.

President Donald Trump says he wants to end mail-in voting, but voting by mail is already widespread throughout the United States, and he lacks the authority to end a practice that is left up to states to decide.

Nearly 30% of Americans who voted in the 2024 presidential election used a mail-in ballot, according to a USA TODAY analysis of data from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. That’s an increase from just under 24% in 2016. Trump won in both years.

Trump said in a Fox News interview Aug. 15, three days before promising to end mail-in balloting by executive order, that Russian President Vladimir Putin told him during their meeting, “Your election was rigged because you have mail in voting. … It's impossible to have mail-in voting and have honest elections.”

Bernard Fraga, a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta, called mail-in voting “extremely secure” and said “only a tiny, tiny fraction of ballots cast are even suspected of being somehow invalid.”

“National polling indicates that mail-in voting is broadly popular, is seen as generally safe and secure,” Fraga said. He pointed to a steady increase in mail-in ballots in the 10 years before it peaked in 2020.

Since Trump started casting doubt on the 2020 election, he and many of his supporters have questioned the validity of mail-in ballots.

“It’s polarized in recent years," Fraga said. "But historically, mail-in voting was more and more popular among older voters who tend to lean more Republican.”

Here are some fast facts on mail-in voting, which many states call absentee voting, and how Americans are using the option.

Mail-in voting rose from 2016 to 2024

Mail-in voting has become increasingly popular over the past two decades. From the 2016 presidential election to the 2024 election, the number of mail-in ballots increased by 44%.

“Having the option is super-important, and it allows more eligible Americans to take advantage of the voting process,” said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School and a White House aide under President Joe Biden. “It’s basic customer service, is all it is.”

Historically, states that have restricted mail-in ballots have allowed them for specific populations of people, and then they started expanding access, according to Levitt. For example, Texas allows people who are disabled, are due to give birth, or are older than 65 to use mail-in ballots, regardless of whether they'll be near a polling place on Election Day.

Lisa Bryant, chair of the political science department at California State University Fresno, said mail-in ballots make voting easier for people who have disabilities or difficulty with the language.

Levitt said many people also prefer to be able to read their ballot at home and spend time researching the candidates.

The highest rates of mail-in ballots in 2024 were in the western part of the country, where states such as Oregon and Washington send all voters mail-in ballots, and only a small fraction choose to vote in-person on Election Day.

From 2016 to 2024, there was a notable increase in mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania, which passed a law allowing no-excuse absentee voting in 2019. The rate of mail-in ballots in Arkansas increased from about 29,000 per 100,000 voters in 2016 to about 34,000 per 100,000 voters in 2024.

Mail-in voting is now more popular among Democrats

In the 2008 presidential election, there was only a slight difference in the popularity of mail-in voting by political party, according to a data analysis by Charles Stewart, director of the MIT Election Data and Science Lab. About 18% of Democrats voted by mail, compared with just under 19% of Republicans and 24% of independents.

Bryant said John McCain, the Republican candidate for president in 2008, was one of the first presidential candidates to push for mail-in voting. She pointed to door hangers his campaign used encouraging people to vote by mail and return their ballots early so that campaign staff wouldn't have to spend valuable time visiting homes where people had already voted.

By 2012, Democrats were outpacing Republicans 23%-19%, in choosing mail-in voting, and 21% of independents voted by mail, according to the data from Stewart. That trend has continued in presidential elections since. In 2024, 37% of Democrats voted by mail, compared with 24% of Republicans and 30% of independents.

North Carolina has voted by mail consistently

Democrats and Republicans alike have treated North Carolina as a swing state for more than a decade, and mail-in voting has been relatively flat, except for a spike in 2020, when the rate of mail-in balloting was about four times what it usually is.

North Carolina calls its mail-in ballots absentee ballots, and anyone can request one during presidential elections, according to the State Board of Elections.

In the 2008 presidential election, in which Democrat Barack Obama won both the state and the election, 5.2% of voters used mail-in ballots, according to election board data. Republican voters slightly outpaced Democrats, 10%-8%, according to Stewart's data.

In 2016, when Trump won North Carolina, the rate of mail-in ballots fell to 4%, according to election board data. In 2024, when Trump won the state and the election, the rate was also 5.2% − even though overall number of ballots cast in the presidential election increased by nearly one-third from 2008 to 2024.

From 2012 to 2024, the party breakdown of mail-in balloting in North Carolina has swung back and forth, according to Stewart's data. Democrats used it by more than twice the rate of Republicans in 2012, 13%-6%. But that flipped back in 2024, when 12% of Republicans used mail-in ballots compared with 9% of Democrats.

Why mail-in ballot use spiked in 2020

More than 69 million people cast mail-in ballots during the 2020 presidential election, an all-time record, because of widespread concern about contracting COVID-19 in crowded polling places. Many state legislatures made it easier to get mail-in ballots that year to protect public health.

“Voting is often associated with standing in line for an extended period of time,” said Bryant, from Fresno State. “And being in an enclosed place, and even with masks, people didn’t want to take that chance.”

Though skeptics of the results of the 2020 election often cast doubt on mail-in voting, experts widely rated the 2020 election as secure. The nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice at New York University called it “one of the most secure elections in our history.”

Nonetheless, many states have implemented additional safeguards around mail-in ballots, such as video monitoring on ballot drop boxes, limiting the number or hours that drop boxes that can be left outside and requiring voters to provide their identification numbers on their ballot envelopes.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump wants to eliminate mail-in voting. But 1 in 3 voters use it.

Reporting by Carlie Procell, Jennifer Borresen and Erin Mansfield, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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