Jimmy Carter Knew Voting By Mail Was a Mistake—and Endorsed It Anyway
The late president caved to pandemic politics to boost Democrat turnout, ignoring the dangers he helped identify two decades ago.
The late President Jimmy Carter could have cemented his legacy as a rare, sensible Democrat who helped improve America's election laws. He chose Democrat power instead.
In 2005, Carter chaired a commission that assessed America's election system was dangerously exposed because of how it handled mail-in voting and offered excellent legislative recommendations. Unfortunately, in 2020—as Democrat leaders launched an aggressive push for universal mail-in voting, no-excuse absentee ballots, drop boxes, and ballot harvesting—the Carter Center claimed the report had been "misinterpreted," putting a sad undoing to Carter's commendable legacy on election integrity.
Carter and James Baker III, who served as Secretary of State under former President George Bush Sr., chaired the bipartisan Carter-Baker Commission to study election vulnerabilities. Their landmark report, "Building Confidence in U.S. Elections," identified the need for cleaner voter-registration databases and stricter chain-of-custody rules.
Absentee ballots, the report stated, "remain the largest source of potential voter fraud." The Commission followed Congress' passage of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA)—which came in response to the close-run election that divided Americans in 2000. HAVA did not settle all the concerns about election integrity, but the Commission's data-driven evidence of election deficiencies and sound legislative solutions offered Congress a roadmap to fix those flaws and build electoral confidence.,
Rather than downplay or ignore the threat of illegal votes as many Democrats do today, the report also identified then-recent cases of non-citizens who were confirmed registered voters.
To solve this, it advocated strict voter ID requirements, suggesting that voters without a valid photo ID should cast a provisional ballot that will count only if they return to the appropriate election office within 48 hours with proper documentation.
Two decades later, individual Republican-led states have made strides to crack down on potential electoral fraud and mistakes by adopting many of Carter-Baker's recommendations. However, many of the structural weaknesses Carter and Baker identified persist in most states because Congress never took action, and because blue states have largely moved in the opposite direction since 2020.
The result? A September 2025 international comparison from the Meyers Report of 37 countries found the United States ranks dead last in election rules. The report gave the U.S. a score of 59.8 out of 100, with the average being 81. The comparison assessed that if Congress were to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE America Act) or similar legislation, it would boost America's score to 80.
Carter Traded Bipartisan Moral Clarity for Indefensible Partisan Tribalism
Whether from opportunistic hypocrisy or peer pressure, Carter's backtrack on mail-in voting damaged his moderate brand and the cause of election integrity.
"I urge political leaders across the country to take immediate steps to expand vote-by-mail and other measures that can help protect the core of American democracy—the right of our citizens to vote," Carter infamously stated.
The Carter Center acknowledged the original risks that Carter and Baker identified but insisted "new technologies" had changed the need to adopt their recommended solutions.
But partisan peer pressure likely played a much larger role than new evidence and technology.. Democratic operatives and progressive groups framed any skepticism about mass mail-in voting as voter suppression, and any deviation from the partisan line threatened Carter's legacy with his own party.
Yes, barcodes and USPS tracking became widespread by 2020. But these tools address only one narrow logistical issue. They do nothing to solve signature forgeries on return envelopes. They do not fix chain-of-custody gaps. They offer no protection against ballot harvesting—the legal but easily abused practice of third parties collecting and delivering bundles of ballots. Crucially, they don't fix bloated voter-registration rolls filled with outdated names, deceased voters, and ineligible registrants. That bloat creates the opportunity for fraud the Carter-Baker Commission warned about.
The Carter-Baker Commission understood the danger these election vulnerabilities created back in 2005, when mail voting was far less common. Those vulnerabilities were never resolved at the federal level, which is why passing federal legislation like the SAVE America Act is essential to restoring fair and transparent elections in the U.S.
Carter helped author one of the most prescient warnings about the risks associated with mail-in voting, lax voter identification, and sloppy voter rolls. His unfortunate reversal encouraged states to ignore the Commission's balanced recommendations. Rather than cement his legacy as a sensible Democrat who could help bridge the partisan divide to help improve America's elections, in the end, he succumbed to his party's radical position. The Carter-Baker Commission got it right. Carter, in the end, did not.
SAVE AMERICA'S ELECTIONS:
FREE ELECTIONS: Who's Really Suppressing the Vote? Debunking Democrats' Attacks on Election Integrity
VIRGINIA: Virginia Judge Stops Democrat Gerrymandering Power Grab
SAVE ACT: John Thune Must Fight for a Talking Filibuster on the SAVE America Act
DEBUNKED: Lying Leftist Ladies Think Women are Too Dumb and Lazy to Vote With ID
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