Are votes by mail in the US safe and secure?
Executive summary
Vote-by-mail is broadly secure in practice—large studies find fraud is vanishingly rare and many jurisdictions maintain layered safeguards like signature checks and ballot tracking [1] [2]—but recent policy changes, federal political pressure, and logistic vulnerabilities (notably new USPS postmark guidance) create real operational risks that could result in valid ballots being discounted and erode public confidence [3] [4] [5].
1. The baseline: evidence shows low fraud, strong local safeguards
Multiple analysts and studies conclude that mail-voting fraud is uncommon and that routine administrative protections—sending ballots only to registered voters, serial-numbered ballot envelopes, signature verification, and ballot-tracking systems—make widespread manipulation unlikely in most jurisdictions [1] [2].
2. Practical vulnerabilities: out of sight, more paths to error
Voting by mail removes the act of voting from public view, which increases theoretical risks such as coercion or impersonation, and the postal transmission path introduces opportunities for ballots to be intercepted, delayed, or mishandled in ways that in-person voting does not face [6].
3. A new postal rule that could toss otherwise valid ballots
The U.S. Postal Service’s recent guidance that it may not postmark mail the same day it accepts it means ballots mailed on Election Day might not show an Election Day postmark; in states that accept only postmarked-by-Election-Day ballots, that change could cause thousands of late-arriving ballots to be rejected [3] [4].
4. Federal politics and policy: risk to resources and trust
Federal moves—requests for massive voter data, scaling back federal election-security efforts, and public attacks on mail voting by the president—don’t directly change state-run rules but can undermine public trust, divert resources, and create legal and administrative turbulence that makes secure mail voting harder to administer smoothly [5] [7] [8].
5. Legal limits on presidential power versus practical effects
Most constitutional and election experts say a president cannot unilaterally ban states from using mail ballots, and such executive orders would face legal challenges; nevertheless, threats or federal pressure can still disrupt cooperation, funding, and morale among local election officials [9] [10] [11].
6. Who is worried and why: election officials’ on-the-ground concerns
Election administrators at recent briefings flagged mail delays, postmarks, interference and even physical threats as top worries ahead of the 2026 midterms—concerns that are not hypothetical but based on real operational headaches seen since 2020 and on an environment of heightened political rhetoric around mailed ballots [12].
7. Mitigations: what works and what remains uncertain
Operational fixes—encouraging earlier mailing or hand-delivery, using secure drop boxes, ballot tracking, signature verification, and USPS/Postal Inspection coordination—reduce many risks and are recommended by postal and election authorities, but they don’t eliminate vulnerabilities created by policy shifts or by the “out of sight” nature of mail voting [13] [2].
8. Verdict: conditionally secure but fragile to policy and logistics shocks
In sum, votes by mail in the U.S. are secure in ordinary conditions: structural safeguards and empirical studies point to low fraud and reliable systems [1] [2]. However, the method is sensitive to logistics (postmarks, deliveries), administrative capacity, and political interference; recent USPS postmark guidance and federal actions have introduced plausible, fixable failure modes that could disenfranchise voters or damage confidence if not addressed [3] [4] [5].