Vote the easy, safe, American way: Mail it in!

When I was a high school debate coach, my first rule was: Always start with the facts. So let's start with this incontrovertible fact: There's nothing wrong with voting by mail. Just the opposite. As I can attest, having voted by mail in every election for the last 30 years, there's everything good about it. It's convenient, easy, accurate, safe, and secure.

Voting by mail has become as American as apple pie. In 2024, one-third of Americans voted by mail. Some form of absentee/mail ballot exists in all 50 states. In 37 states, no medical or family emergency is necessary. You just need to request a mail-in ballot. To encourage voting by mail, eight states - California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, and Washington, plus the District of Columbia - automatically send a mail-in ballot to every registered voter.

In 2000, blue-state Oregon started voting entirely by mail, the first state to do so. In 2019, red-state Utah followed, although with a few, limited polling centers. Three more states - Washington, Colorado, and Hawaii -also now vote almost exclusively by mail. And, while there are always a handful of isolated cases, there is not now, and never has been, any evidence of massive voter fraud related to mail-in voting in any state. No matter what Donald Trump says. Never.

In fact, an analysis of the 2024 national vote showed that the most common reason a mail ballot was rejected was a missing or mismatched signature. Another 17.8 percent of rejected ballots were received after the deadline. And 11.1 percent were rejected because the voter had already cast another ballot. And note: all those invalid ballots were caught, rejected, and never counted.

The only problem with mail-in ballots, in other words, is not voter fraud, but voter stupidity. But nothing can compare to the monumental stupidity of Donald J. Trump who, for whatever inexplicable reason, has developed a phobia about vote by mail. It's his White Whale. With zero evidence, he calls it "Cheating by Mail." Even though - get this! - he's voted by mail in Florida at least five times. Which is just one more case of Trump's regal rule: the law applies to everyone but me, because I'm the king.

But Trump's not only upset about vote by mail, he's doing everything he can to kill it. On March 31, he signed an executive order requiring the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in coordination with the Social Security Administration, to compile and transmit state citizenship lists to send to state election officials at least 60 days before regularly scheduled federal elections, and demanding that states provide voter rolls to the U.S. Postal Service before sending out ballots.

Fortunately, that executive order is being challenged in court by several civil rights organizations led by Common Cause, the NAACP, and the League of Women Voters on two counts. One, the Constitution - which gives states, not federal agencies, the exclusive power to conduct elections. Two, the timing. We're now less than 60 days from the midterms and some states have already started sending out ballots, before the legality of Trump's executive order is decided.

In a desperate move, Trump has asked the Supreme Court to step in. Again. Which they might. Again. But even if they rule against him, it won't stop Trump. Because his anti-mail vote campaign is only one element of his overall plans to undermine the midterm elections. It's clear he'll do anything he can - send ICE agents to polling places; call out the military; invoke an emergency and invoke martial law; invalidate all votes by mail; offer voters a $5,000 bribe - anything he can to disrupt, cancel, or invalidate the midterms.

Why? Because he knows that with the war in Iran dragging on, the price of gas over $4, the price of groceries ballooning every week, the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein still hanging over him, and his approval rating at an all-time low of 33 percent, the only way Republicans can win November is to cheat.

Now here's the ultimate irony. Any Republican strategist will admit that, historically, the party that benefits most from "absentee ballots" has always been the Republican Party. Simply because they're better organized and more effective at encouraging people to get their votes in early. That's why former Speaker Kevin McCarthy tried to talk Trump out of attacking vote by mail. Because by limiting or destroying mail-in voting, Trump is not just undermining democracy, he's making it harder for Republican candidates to win.

Of course, everybody knows that except the overweight, uninformed, mentally unhinged idiot in the White House.
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(Bill Press is host of The BillPressPod, and author of 10 books, including: "From the Left: My Life in the Crossfire." His email address is: bill@billpress.com. Readers may also follow him on Twitter @billpresspod and on BlueSky @BillPress.bsky.social.)

(C)2026 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The Supreme Court bulldozes the People's House 

American history has been turned upside down. In order to prevent any president from becoming a king, our Founding Fathers wisely established three branches of government: the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial. But that's no longer the case. Today we only have one branch, the Executive, where the president has absolute power. The other two, once equally powerful branches of government, are empty vessels. Congress merely delivers whatever new laws the president wants or gets rid of ones he doesn't like; the Supreme Court exists only to rubber stamp anything the president does and knock down any attempts to stop him.

That's not a prediction of how things might turn out. That's the mess we're in today. Where both the Republican-controlled Congress and the Republican-stacked Supreme Court have surrendered whatever powers they used to have in order to serve as nothing but Donald Trump's lackeys. And that's never been more apparent than in this week's 5-4 Supreme Court decision allowing Trump to proceed with construction of his monumental (to himself) ballroom.

Any president has authority to maintain and make minor repairs to the White House, but by law, as two lower courts affirmed, any major structural changes to the White House must first be approved by Congress. Without its approval, constructing a mammoth new ballroom addition to the White House is downright illegal.

But, of course, that didn't stop Donald Trump. After returning from a trip to Saudi Arabia in May 2025, he proposed building a new White House ballroom even bigger and glitzier than the king's. Which, like everything Trump does, was sold all on a pack of lies. That every other president had yearned for a ballroom. That it would be built near the East Wing, without touching it. And that it would be entirely paid for by big donors, with no taxpayer dollars involved. Only much later, after the failed assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, did Trump add another lie: that the ballroom was necessary to protect the president from harm.

Then, in October 2025, without seeking approval from Congress, Trump ordered contractors to tear down the East Wing of the White House and start construction of his ballroom. He did so, counting on Republicans in Congress to do nothing. He could paint the White House blue and they wouldn't object. And trusting his Supreme Court to save his butt, if necessary. He was right about both.

On behalf of one prominent D.C. resident, the National Trust for Historic Preservation sued Trump for breaking the law. D.C. District Court judge Richard J. Leon agreed, but - mistakenly - allowed construction to continue while his decision was appealed. The D.C. appeals court also agreed, voting 2-1 against Trump, but again allowed construction to proceed while Trump's lawyers begged the Supreme Court to step in. Which the court did, in a decision no freshman law student could read without laughing out loud.

Clearly, the only question five justices asked before voting was not "what's the law say?" but "what's my dear leader want?" Their ruling is so blatantly political, it's embarrassing.

First, they ruled that the Trust for Historic Preservation had no "standing" to file the lawsuit. What? The Trust was created by Congress over 75 years ago precisely "to save America's historic sites." If the White House doesn't qualify for protection, what does? It's not Donald Trump's house. It's the people's house. Certainly, representing all Americans angry over Trump's destruction of our house, the Trust has standing to sue to save the White House.

Second, five conservative justices swallowed the administration's phony argument that Trump was building a "military complex," not just a ballroom. Therefore, without a ballroom, you'd be endangering the life of the president. Ridiculous! There's long been a security bunker under the White House, and no doubt it needed some improvements. But that doesn't mean you have to build a 90,000 square foot Taj Mahal on top of it. The frivolous ballroom has nothing to do with serious national security.

Most surprisingly, Chief Justice John Roberts himself joined three liberals on the court and wrote their strong dissent, asserting that Trump's construction of the ballroom was "likely unlawful." The White House is "an iconic American building," Roberts wrote. "All the more reason to ensure that those responsible follow the rules in deciding what to tear down and what to build up at the People's House."

But when did Donald Trump ever follow the rules? He never has and he never will.

(Bill Press is host of The Bill Press Pod, and author of 10 books, including: "From the Left: My Life in the Crossfire." His email address is: bill@billpress.com. Readers may also follow him on Twitter @billpresspod and on BlueSky @BillPress.bsky.social.)

(C)2026 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.