FACT FOCUS: The Trump administration is falsely claiming Jimmy Carter was against mail-in voting

The Trump administration is using a 20-year-old report to misrepresent former President Jimmy Carter's views on mail-in and absentee ballots as it pushes for federal legislation that would impose strict new proof-of-citizenship and photo ID requirements for voting ahead of the midterm elections.

On two successive days this week, President Donald Trump and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt invoked the 2005 report by the Commission on Federal Election Reform while advocating for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE America Act. The commission's co-chairs were Carter, a Democrat, and former Secretary of State James Baker, who held senior government positions in the administrations of three Republican presidents — Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Trump and Leavitt falsely claimed that Carter was against the use of mail-in and absentee ballots because they can lead to fraud, a mischaracterization of the report's conclusions.

Here's a closer look at the facts.

TRUMP, at the Republican Members Issues Conference on Monday: “Jimmy Carter, the best thing he ever did, he headed a commission after he was president. It was the single best thing. And he did a thing on mail-in ballots. He said mail-in ballots should not be allowed because they are inherently dishonest.”

LEAVITT, at a White House press briefing on Tuesday: “The bipartisan 2005 report of the Commission on Federal Election Reform, shared by, of all people, former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker, concluded that, quote, ‘absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.'”

THE FACTS: Carter supported mail-in voting and absentee ballots, according to statements by the late president, his grandson Jason Carter and The Carter Center. The 2005 report stated that absentee and mail-in ballots can create opportunities for fraud, but also suggested ways to reduce that risk and recommended further research on the issue. Experts say there is no evidence that mail-in and absentee voting leads to widespread fraud, either now or 20 years ago.

“My grandfather supported mail-in voting — so much so that he used it himself,” Jason Carter, chair of The Carter Center's board of trustees, told The Associated Press in a statement on Wednesday. “Any claim to the contrary unnecessarily sows doubt in election integrity and undermines voter confidence in a consequential election year.”

President Carter himself publicly endorsed mail-in voting and absentee ballots in 2020, a view that continued until his death in 2024.

“I urge political leaders across the country to take immediate steps to expand vote-by-mail and other measures to help protect the core of American democracy — the right of our citizens the vote,” he said in May 2020 amid concerns about elections during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Four months later, in response to news reports about his opinion of absentee ballots, Carter said: “I approve the use of absentee ballots and have been using them for more than five years.”

Voting by mail remains popular with voters of both major parties. During the 2024 election, which Trump won, roughly 30% of voters cast mailed ballots, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. That was higher than pre-pandemic levels, when about a quarter of voters used mailed ballots. Three of the four states where use of mailed ballots was higher than in 2020 are controlled politically by Republicans — Indiana, South Dakota and Utah.

Trump himself has voted by mail in his home state of Florida.

The Commission on Federal Election Reform, organized by American University's Center for Democracy and Election Management and funded by a group of philanthropic organizations, published a report, “Building Confidence in U.S. Elections,” in 2005. Among its findings were that “absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud” and that voting by mail is “likely to increase the risks of fraud and of contested elections” in certain states.

However, the report did not discourage the use of mail-in and absentee ballots. Rather, it included suggestions for how to reduce the risk of fraud.

The report made three recommendations related to absentee ballots and voter registration fraud: that jurisdictions only allow specific people to handle ballots, and prohibit candidates or party workers from picking up and delivering absentee ballots; that states should pass legislation to minimize fraud from payments for voter registration, absentee ballot or signature collection efforts; and that states should not discourage legal voter registration or get-out-the-vote work.

It also suggested that states should implement better safeguards for ballot integrity and encouraged further research on the pros and cons of mail-in and early voting. The report noted that in Oregon, which had been using vote-by-mail for seven years, there was “little evidence of fraud."

"The administration's claims about President Carter's views on mail-in voting are not true,” the Carter Center said in a statement this week to The Associated Press.

It said the claims do not “consider the rest of the report's findings or President Carter's acknowledgment of the safeguards that have emerged in the 20+ years since this report came out.”

Mail-in and absentee voting does not cause widespread election fraud, according to experts, even as their use has increased in the past two decades, from roughly 13% of voters in 2004 to nearly a third of all ballots cast two years ago.

“There's no evidence that mail-in voting fraud was rampant then, and it's not rampant now,” said Mark Lindeman, policy and strategy director at Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group focused on election technology. “Mail voting has become more common and more mature. So, over that period of time, states have learned from each other — best practices for not only avoiding fraud, but just generally administering mail balloting well.”

For example, ballot tracking, curing ballots that had initially been rejected, and the ability to identify and address duplicate voter registrations have improved.

Trump has flip-flopped on mail-in voting over the years. He preemptively argued that mail balloting was bad months before voting even began in the 2020 election. At the same time, he encouraged voters in Florida — a state he won — to vote by mail. Trump and other Republicans then blamed mail-in voting for his loss.

The GOP, and sometimes even Trump, urged voters to cast their ballots by mail ahead of the 2024 election when it was seen as a necessary course correction during a tight race.

Asked whether Trump stands by the statements he and Leavitt made, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said: “President Trump and Karoline are completely right -- and Karoline read a direct quote from the report during her briefing."

She added that the press release The Carter Center published in May 2020 that included Carter’s endorsement of mail-in voting “does not invalidate the findings” of the 2005 report.

Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

FILE - Former President Jimmy Carter speaks during an annual Carter Town Hall held at Emory University in Atlanta, Sept. 18, 2019. (AP Photo/John Amis, File)

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Tuesday, March 10, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters as he walks to depart on Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House, Wednesday, March 11, 2026, in Washington, as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, looks on. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters before departing on Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House, Wednesday, March 11, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Former Los Angeles police detective Mark Fuhrman, who was convicted of lying during testimony at the O.J. Simpson murder trial, has died. He was 74.

Fuhrman was one of the first two police detectives sent to investigate the 1994 killings of Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman, in Los Angeles. He reported finding a bloody glove at Simpson’s home but his credibility came under attack during the trial as the defense raised the prospect of racial bias.

Under cross-examination, Fuhrman testified that he had never made anti-Black racial slurs in the past decade, but a recording showed he had done so repeatedly.

Lynn Acebedo, the chief deputy coroner in Kootenai County, Idaho, said that Fuhrman died May 12. The county does not release the cause of death as a rule.

Alan Dershowitz, a prominent lawyer and law professor who was a legal strategist on Simpson’s defense “Dream Team,” said Fuhrman was a “much better detective than he was a witness.”

“He’s very smart, and you know, a very, very aggressive detective. Ultimately his actions helped us win the O.J. case because of his use of the ‘n’ word,” Dershowitz said Monday evening. “I got to know him later, after it was all over, and we had a cordial relationship.”

Fuhrman retired from the Los Angeles Police Department after Simpson’s 1995 acquittal. He subsequently moved to Idaho with his family and set up a 20-acre (eight-hectare) farm, raising chickens, goats, sheep and llamas.

In 1996, Fuhrman was charged with perjury and pleaded no contest. He later became a TV and radio commentator and wrote the book “Murder in Brentwood” about the killings.

A criminal-court jury found Simpson, a former star NFL running back and actor, not guilty of murder in 1995, but a separate civil trial jury found him liable in 1997 for the deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5 million to relatives of Brown and Goldman. He served nine years in prison on unrelated charges and died in Las Vegas of prostate cancer in 2024 at the age of 76.

Kato Kaitlin, a friend of Brown who also testified in the murder trial, wrote in a post on X that he wanted to respectfully acknowledge Fuhrman's death and that he hopes Fuhrman's loved ones can find peace.

“While we were never close personally, our lives were indelibly linked through our roles in the O.J. Simpson trial over thirty years ago. It was a deeply complex and painful chapter for everyone involved, but any loss of life is a time for reflection and solemnity,” Kaitlin wrote.

Fuhrman’s father left when he was 7 years old, and Fuhrman often cared for his younger brother while his mother worked. As an adult, he joined the Marines and then the Los Angeles Police Department.

Golden reported from Seattle.

FILE - In this June 15, 1995 file photo, O.J. Simpson, left, grimaces as he tries on one of the leather gloves prosecutors say he wore the night his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were murdered in a Los Angeles courtroom. (AP Photo/Sam Mircovich, Pool, File)

FILE - Los Angeles Police Department Det. Mark Fuhrman, foreground, and Superior Court Judge Lance Ito, rear, crane their heads to look at an overhead monitor during the O.J. Simpson double-murder trial, Friday, March 10, 1995, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)

FILE - Los Angeles Police Detective Mark Fuhrman shows the jury in the O.J. Simpson double murder trial evidence during testimony Friday, March 10, 1995, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, Pool, File)