By April Ryan

“There’s no reason to set the clock back, simply because Vladimir Putin gave him some political advice,” said Donna Brazile, former head of the Democratic National Committee and former chair of the DNC’s Voting Rights Institute. President Donald Trump said in his meeting with the Ukrainian president on Monday that he would issue an executive order before the 2026 midterms to end mail-in election ballots. Subsequently, the president also acknowledged his Alaskan conversation with Putin, in which the Russian president told him, “Your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting.”

However, for Democrats, the concern is not Trump’s EO but how he rallies the states to end mail-in balloting. “He doesn’t have the power to order any of this. He [Trump] hopes he can make state governments do what he can’t,” says Eric Holder, former Obama Attorney General of the United States, and is currently the chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC). “We’ve made significant progress and providing access to people to vote by mail or to vote early. Any efforts to curtail that accessibility will only set us back as a country,” adds Brazile. Donald Trump has voted by mail twice in 2020 in the state of Florida, and he consulted Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the issue of voting by mail.

Reflecting on history, Brazile notes, “Most modern democracies give voters give citizens the tools to vote by mail or vote early. Or, in some cases, same-day vote of registration.” Brazile also says Donald Trump benefited from early voting in the 2024 election cycle after winning several states, “like North Carolina.” The Veteran democratic strategist advises the twice-elected president: ” Before putting forward an executive order, he might want to talk to his state governors and secretaries of state, along with the RNC. [Republican National Committee]” In a related note, Brazile will sponsor a resolution at the DNC meeting next week on preserving voting rights for all Americans.