Trump calls mail-in ballots, voting machines unreliable. What Idaho official says

President Donald Trump on Monday vowed to eliminate “highly ‘inaccurate’ ” voting machines and mail-in ballots that contribute to “massive voter fraud.”

Both of those systems are important parts of voting in Idaho, said Secretary of State Phil McGrane, whose office oversees elections in the state. And, he said, they’re highly reliable.

When his office does audits or recounts of vote tallies, he said, “we find very, very minimal error,” McGrane told the Idaho Statesman.

Absentee ballots comprised about 20% of the ballots cast in the last two elections in Idaho, he said. They play an important role in allowing members of the military, missionaries and Micron employees posted overseas to cast their votes, he said.

Voting machines are used to tabulate voters’ selections, whether they submit their ballots in person or mail them in. Almost every ballot cast in Idaho is processed through a voting machine, except in some of the state’s most rural counties, which count votes by hand. The counties that hand-count the votes tend to have the most frequent errors, McGrane said.

“The machines go through such crazy scrutiny – we’re talking very detailed,” he said.

McGrane, a Republican, acknowledged that every system has its weak points. People hand-counting ballots can alter the ballots or make mistakes. Mail-in voting requires verification of the voter’s signature and validation that the voter really did request an absentee ballot.

“Different systems have their vulnerabilities,” he said. “You have to be aware of what those are, and then take steps to safeguard and mitigate those.”

The League of Women Voters of Idaho, a nonpartisan group that works to protect and expand voting rights, slammed Trump’s proposal in a statement shared with the Statesman.

“Eliminating mail-in voting in Idaho would disenfranchise many qualified voters, including those living in rural or remote areas who do not have access to in-person voting,” said Kendal Shaber and Elinor Chehey, the organization’s co-directors of voter services. Idaho has 11 precincts that only offer mail-in voting, they wrote.

Trump’s characterization of mail-in voting as a “scam” flies in the face of the Republican Party’s campaign in 2024 to encourage its base to vote absentee. Republicans paid tens of millions of dollars last year to persuade voters of the safety of absentee voting, making big strides toward closing a traditional Democratic advantage in mail voting, Politico reported.

For now, McGrane said, it’s too soon to say what Trump’s pronouncement could mean for Idaho. The administration hasn’t yet issued an executive order, so it’s too soon to say how the details will shake out, especially given the president’s previous support for mail-in voting.

“I don’t want to take this one comment out of context of the bigger picture,” McGrane said. “I think we’re going to see it sort out.”