Republicans ban mail voting: Congress bill ends absentee ballots except for military overseas

By Muhammad Asghar | GlobalBeat

Senator Mike Lee introduced legislation Tuesday that restricted mail ballots to active-duty military personnel stationed outside the United States.

The bill eliminated the 1973 Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act that allowed 2.8 million civilians to vote by mail in 2020.

Former President Donald Trump demanded the measure during a Mar-a-Lago dinner last month, according to three Republican aides briefed on the conversation. The proposal landed amid Trump’s continued false claims that mail voting caused his 2020 defeat.

Lee’s “In-Person Voting Act” required every voter to cast ballots at assigned precincts on Election Day, with exceptions only for troops deployed abroad. The Utah Republican said the change restored election integrity during a Capitol press conference.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune predicted the bill would reach the floor before August recess, Republican aides told reporters. House Speaker Mike Johnson already pledged to hold a vote within 60 days, according to his office.

Democrats condemned the measure as voter suppression. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Republicans wanted to block working parents from participating, his office stated in an email to journalists.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger warned the elimination would create chaos in his state where 1.3 million voters used absentee ballots in 2022, according to state election data he cited during a telephone interview.

The bill faced constitutional challenges from voting rights groups who planned lawsuits immediately, said Sophia Lin Lakin of the Brennan Center for Justice during a briefing with legal reporters.

Thune acknowledged Republicans lacked the 60 Senate votes needed to break an expected Democratic filibuster, according to remarks he made to政治 journalists in the Senate corridor.

Background

Congress passed the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act after Vietnam War complaints that troops could not vote. The law required states to accept mailed ballots from citizens living abroad, later expanded to include all absentee voters in most states.

Mail voting surged during COVID-19 when 46 percent of 2020 ballots arrived through the postal system, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Trump attacked the expansion as “fraud” after losing, leading to 19 states tightening mail ballot rules since 2021, researchers at the Voting Rights Lab reported.

What’s Next

The Senate Rules Committee scheduled a June hearing on Lee’s bill, setting up a party-line vote that advanced the measure toward full chamber consideration by July, the committee clerk confirmed.

States would need to overhaul election systems if the law cleared Congress, requiring new precinct equipment and additional poll workers before 2026 midterms, according to election officials in Michigan and Arizona who spoke on background about implementation timelines.