Trump's push to make it harder to vote could hurt some of his own voters

During a rambling speech in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, last Thursday, Republican nominee Donald Trump previewed what voting could look like in the United States if he’s elected president. And (spoiler alert), it’s likely to leave a lot of Americans out of the process. And the rant offered some insight into why he might have been inspired to tell his followers they won’t have to vote again if they elect him in November.

He said:

We have to get back in and we want to change it all. We want to go to paper ballots. We want to go to same-day voting. We want to go to citizenship papers, and we want to go to voter ID. It's very simple. We want to get rid of mail-in voting.”

As president, Trump and his administration wouldn’t have the power to enact these policies on their own. But it’s entirely possible if he’s elected that Trump will take liberties — pun intended — and test those boundaries, given the Supreme Court ruling that granted him immunity for so-called official acts. So it’s worth looking at how these things would actually affect ordinary Americans if Trump and his GOP get their way. 

He said “we want to go to paper ballots” — but the overwhelming majority of counties in the United States (98% of them, according to the Brennan Center) already use paper ballots. Machines, however, do most of the counting. But far-right proposals to hand-count ballots could increase the cost of elections, increase the inaccuracy of vote counts and delay the certification of elections in ways that allow bad actors to make bogus allegations of voter fraud. 

Trump said he wants to go to “same-day” voting, an apparent reference to “one day” voting he’s backed in the past, which would effectively end mail-in voting. This would hurt rural voters, a large number of whom have thrown their support behind Trump in the past. It would also disproportionately affect disabled voters, whose voter participation was boosted in 2020 thanks to mail-in voting. Residents of states where mail-in voting is immensely popular — like the crucial swing state of Arizona — are unlikely to appreciate Trump threatening their way of life this way. They’ve already rejected Trumpian candidates like Kari Lake, who pushed similar efforts to ban mail-in voting at Trump’s instigation. (Also like Lake, Trump can’t seem to make up his mind whether he is against mail-in voting or for it, as he seemed to be just months ago.)

Trump’s plan to require “citizenship papers” — like recently passed voter ID laws — is also ripe for discrimination. Despite states already having methods to check voters’ citizenship (which is required to vote in federal elections), the GOP-controlled House passed a bill to require proof of citizenship when registering to vote. This comes at the same time Republicans have pushed conspiracy theories about noncitizens voting. State voter ID laws passed by Republicans have been shown to disproportionately impede nonwhite people, and advocates warn that a “citizenship papers” requirement could disenfranchise potentially millions of Americans for whom such paperwork is not easily accessible. This group of voters is disproportionately nonwhite and identifies as independent or Democrat, according to NPR. 

All of this helps to explain why Trump seems to believe his followers won’t need to vote again if he’s elected. If he can get Republicans to distort the voting process and limit ballot access in ways that target liberal-leaning groups, he can effectively ensure he and his party stay in power with little to no risk of meaningful opposition.