Trump wants to end mail-in voting. Gov. Ron DeSantis says Florida's system is fine

Lawrence Mower, Tampa Bay Times on Aug 19, 2025

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday that he doesn’t think President Donald Trump’s desire to ban voting by mail applies to Florida.

Asked about Trump’s vow on Monday to “lead a movement” to end the use of mail-in ballots, DeSantis said he thought it only applied to states that send mail ballots to all voters.

“What he means by vote my mail, I think, just in my conversations, is the states like California and Nevada and others, where they just send all these ballots out into the ether,” DeSantis said during a news conference.

He defended Florida’s system, in which voters have to request a vote-by-mail ballot.

“I think what Florida has is absentee voting,” he said. He noted that county elections supervisors don’t mail ballots to anyone who hasn’t requested one.

Trump’s post on Truth Social made no such distinctions. He wrote that he would issue an executive order to bring “honesty” to the 2026 elections by getting “rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS” as well as “Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES.”

“It’s time that the Republicans get tough and stop it, because the Democrats want it,” Trump later told reporters.

Trump does not have the power to change voting laws. The Constitution gives states the power to set the “times, places and manner” of elections.

Trump’s longstanding grievance with voting by mail — a method he has used to vote in Palm Beach County — has exposed rifts among Florida Republicans over the last few years.

The state’s GOP leaders have promoted the use of voting by mail over the last two decades, even changing the name from “absentee” to “vote by mail” to imply that voters don’t have to be absent to make use of it. More than 3 million Floridians voted by mail in last year’s election.

But DeSantis and the party have had to bat down fringe elements who have embraced Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud, including with the use of mail-in ballots in Florida. Lawmakers have responded by making it harder to request, renew and submit mail ballots.

DeSantis said Tuesday that voting by mail is “popular” in Florida, and he questioned how banning it outright would work.

“Clearly, you would need some absentee (ballots) for military overseas (voters), right?” DeSantis said. “I mean, so that’s at a minimum, you’d need that.”