Restricting no-excuse absentee voting and banning drop boxes won't actually improve election integrity, despite the claims of many conservatives, according to a new study.
R Street Institute, a right-leaning public policy research organization, released a five-page report this week arguing against various state proposals aimed at restricting voting access. While the report says some proposed reforms deserve serious deliberation, others will only make it harder for people to vote.
More Americans than ever cast a ballot by mail in the 2020 election due to the Covid-19 pandemic, prompting some states to consider making no-excuse absentee voting and other ballot expansions permanent policies. However, 33 state legislatures are also considering more than 165 bills that would restrict voting access.
Before the pandemic, two-thirds of states allowed voters to cast absentee ballots for any reason and several more made temporary allowances last fall. Only five states (Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Indiana and Mississippi) kept the excuse requirement for voting by mail in the 2020 election.
While former President Donald Trump's baseless claims of voting fraud connected to mailed ballots during and after the election have caused many Republican lawmakers to now seek rollbacks or restrictions on voting access, those allegations have no basis in fact, according to R Street.
The report points out that absentee ballots face a "rigorous process to ensure ballots are legitimate, including ballot tracking measures and signature verification." R Street also cites an election fraud database run by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which has found a miniscule number of fraud cases over multiple election cycles.
"Moving to an excuse-only absentee system would do nothing to combat fraud, and may instead suppress voter turnout," wrote Steven Greenhut and Marc Hyden, two state policy experts at R Street who authored the report. "Many Americans prefer the convenience and flexibility provided by no-excuse absentee voting."
Ballot drop boxes, an extension of mail voting, have also been under attack. Eliminating their availability would also hinder voter convenience, especially given the mail delivery delays last fall, the report says.
"Ironically, many Republicans questioned the ability of the U.S. Postal Service to handle something as important as a ballot, yet are now proposing rules that would eliminate a reasonable alternative," Greenhut and Hyden wrote.
Expanding absentee voting is good reform and not an invitation for fraud, the report concludes. "Instead of seeking to ban tried-and-true methods of voting, lawmakers should instead look to ensure that eligible voters have the utmost opportunity to safely exercise their voting rights."
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.