Trump casts a mail-in ballot in Florida special election as he tries to sharply limit absentee voting

President Donald Trump waves after arriving on Air Force One, Monday, March 23, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

U.S. President Donald Trump voted in Tuesday’s state House special election by mail even as he suggested on Monday that “mail-in voting means mail-in cheating.”

“You know, brought to my attention today that we’re the only country that does mail-in voting,” Trump said at a roundtable on crime in Memphis. “Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating. I call it mail-in cheating, and we got to do something about it all.”

According to Palm Beach County records, Trump voted in the special election for House District 87, which includes his Mar-a-Lago residence, by mail earlier this month. Trump also voted by mail in the primary for the election in January.

Trump has repeatedly questioned the veracity of voting by mail, claiming without evidence that it’s a significant source of election fraud. He has made the elimination of no-excuse mail voting a top priority through the “SAVE America Act”, a federal elections overhaul bill facing slim odds of passage in the Senate. The Supreme Court also heard arguments Monday in a case brought by Republicans that seeks to tighten deadlines for mail ballots.

Olivia Wales, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement that Trump’s voter ID bill “has commonsense exceptions for Americans to use mail-in ballots for illness, disability, military, or travel.”

“As everyone knows, the President is a resident of Palm Beach and participates in Florida elections, but he obviously primarily lives at the White House in Washington, DC,” she said. “This is a non-story.”

Trump is not expected to be in Florida on Election Day on Tuesday.

It’s not the first time the president has voted by mail, casting a mail ballot most recently in the Florida presidential primary in 2020 while attempting to differentiate his vote as an “absentee” vote.

“Absentee ballots are good, universal mail-ins when you get inundated with these things are bad and will lead to terrible things, including voter fraud, etcetera,” Trump said at the time.

The president voted early in-person in the presidential primary and in person in the general election at a polling location near Mar-a-Lago in 2024.

Molly English, CNN