To the editor:

Recently, President Donald J. Trump, in pure Trumpian fashion, has made it known that he plans to eliminate mail-in balloting in upcoming U.S. elections, declaring, without any supportive evidence, that the long-established and very popular procedure of mail-in voting is somehow corrupt, and has vowed to issue an executive order to eliminate mail-in balloting in order to bring an end to harvesting to the 2026 mid-term elections and beyond. In addition, Trump has stated that he plans to lead a movement to ban mail voting, as well as the use of highly inaccurate voting machines.

However, there is absolutely no substantiation whatsoever to support his ill-conceived and ridiculous claims, and that such is actually the purview of state legislatures and not the president of the United States, of which Trump, as per usual, is either completely ignorant of such procedures or has simply chosen to ignore the rule of law, as he has so often done.

Recall that Trump’s aforementioned declaration was made by him immediately following his recent meeting with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, who claimed that the 2020 U.S. presidential election was rigged against Trump as a result of voter fraud as a result of mailed-in ballots, again with absolutely no such substantiation, disputing the efforts of all U.S. professionals. This, from an individual, Putin, who has a history of attempting to rig democratic elections, including in the U.S. in favor of Trump.

In addition, consider that Trump himself often has voted by mail over the years, and that Republican voters have voted by mail more than have their counterparts in the Democratic Party over the years as well.

Obviously, our power-mad and legally conflicted president plans to do whatever possible in order to rig the upcoming elections in his favor, as well as the favor of candidates representing the Republican Party. Trump has, no doubt, seen the trends that indicate he, personally, and the Republicans are becoming significantly less popular as a result of decision he had made during his second term in office.

As a result, it strongly appears that Trump is more than willing to attempt to destroy our electoral process, which has long been the envy of the free world, in order to keep him, and those of his ilk, in power, and, if he is not successful, will continue to claim that all elections which he or Republicans might lose had been rigged, doing so with no supportive evidence, as per usual.

I am very concerned that if Trump does somehow succeed with these harrowing efforts, that our democratic form of government and electoral process might cease to exist, and could possibly then mirror Putin’s Russia.

Richard Hord

Martins Ferry