Trump officials misrepresent Carter as debate over voting access intensifies
President Donald Trump and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt invoked a 2005 election-related report as they backed federal legislation that would tighten voter proof-of-citizenship and photo ID requirements ahead of the midterm elections, but the Associated Press fact check found they mischaracterized former President Jimmy Carter’s views on mail-in voting.
On two successive days, Trump and Leavitt cited the 2005 report by the Commission on Federal Election Reform while advocating for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE America Act. The commission’s co-chairs were Carter, a Democrat, and former Secretary of State James Baker, who previously held senior roles in Republican administrations of Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
Trump, speaking at the Republican Members Issues Conference on Monday, said: “Jimmy Carter, the best thing he ever did, he headed a commission after he was president. It was the single best thing. And he did a thing on mail-in ballots. He said mail-in ballots should not be allowed because they are inherently dishonest.” The AP fact check said that framing does not match Carter’s position described in Carter-era public statements and in the Carter Center’s description of Carter’s record.
Leavitt, at a White House press briefing on Tuesday, attributed to the bipartisan 2005 report the conclusion that absentee ballots present fraud risk, saying: “The bipartisan 2005 report of the Commission on Federal Election Reform, shared by, of all people, former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker, concluded that, quote, ‘absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.’” The fact check said that this also omitted how the report discussed reducing risks and did not advocate banning mail voting.
In response to the administration’s claims this week, the Carter Center said the assertion about Carter’s views “is not true,” and that the administration’s interpretation does not account for the rest of the report’s findings or for Carter’s acknowledgement of safeguards that have developed over the years since the 2005 report.
Jason Carter, who chairs The Carter Center’s board of trustees, said in a statement to the Associated Press that his grandfather supported mail-in voting. “My grandfather supported mail-in voting — so much so that he used it himself,” Jason Carter said. “Any claim to the contrary unnecessarily sows doubt in election integrity and undermines voter confidence in a consequential election year.”
The Carter Center’s account is supported, AP reported, by Carter’s own public endorsements in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Carter urged political leaders in May 2020 “to take immediate steps to expand vote-by-mail and other measures to help protect the core of American democracy — the right of our citizens the vote.” Four months later, as Carter faced reports that his view on absentee ballots was being questioned, he said: “I approve the use of absentee ballots and have been using them for more than five years.”
AP also pointed to what it described as the administration’s selective reading of the 2005 report itself. The Commission on Federal Election Reform’s report, “Building Confidence in U.S. Elections,” stated that “absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud” and that voting by mail is “likely to increase the risks of fraud and of contested elections” in certain states, but it did not call for preventing or forbidding lawful mail voting. Instead, the report included recommendations on limiting fraud opportunities and improving ballot integrity.
Among the recommendations the report made, AP said, were steps that would control how ballots are handled by limiting who can pick up and deliver absentee ballots, and state legislative changes to minimize fraud tied to payments for registration and related collection efforts. The report also encouraged safeguards to protect ballot integrity and further research into the pros and cons of mail and early voting, noting that in Oregon—where vote-by-mail had been in place for years—there was “little evidence of fraud.”
The fact check also addressed broader questions about whether mail voting produces widespread election fraud. Experts interviewed by AP said there is no evidence that mail-in voting fraud was rampant either decades ago or now, even as mail and absentee voting have grown in popularity. Mark Lindeman, policy and strategy director at Verified Voting, said: “There’s no evidence that mail-in voting fraud was rampant then, and it’s not rampant now.”
Lindeman said mail voting has become “more common and more mature,” and he credited states for learning from one another and adopting “best practices for not only avoiding fraud, but just generally administering mail balloting well.” AP cited examples including improvements such as tracking ballots, curing ballots initially rejected, and addressing duplicate voter registrations.
The Associated Press fact check further said Trump has changed his stance on mail voting over time, including urging vote-by-mail in Florida in the lead-up to the 2024 election while previously arguing months before the 2020 election that mail balloting was “bad.” It also said Trump and other Republicans blamed mail-in voting for his loss in 2020 and then encouraged voters by mail ahead of 2024 when it was seen as useful in a close contest.
After being asked about whether Trump stood by the statements Trump and Leavitt made, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson responded: “President Trump and Karoline are completely right — and Karoline read a direct quote from the report during her briefing.” Jackson also said that a Carter Center press release from May 2020, which included Carter’s endorsement of mail-in voting, “does not invalidate the findings” of the 2005 report.
In its summary of the dispute, AP said the administration’s claims about Carter’s views are contradicted by Carter’s own public statements and by the way the 2005 commission report described risks alongside safeguards rather than discouraging mail voting.