First Lady Melania Trump and their son Barron cast absentee ballots in the March 24, 2026 special election for Florida’s House District 87, utilizing the exact voting approach that President Donald Trump labels “mail-in cheating” and seeks to eliminate via his comprehensive SAVE America Act.
Records from state election officials show that both Melania and Barron, who celebrated his 20th birthday on March 20, submitted absentee ballots in Tuesday’s Florida House District 87 special election. This finding emerges mere days after the 79-year-old president was discovered to have requested an absentee ballot on March 14 for the identical election.
The chronology reveals a striking inconsistency in how the Trump family actually votes. During a Monday visit to Memphis, Tennessee, President Trump condemned the very approach his relatives had just employed.
“Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating. I call it mail-in cheating, and we’ve got to do something about it,” Trump said at a crime task force roundtable in Memphis, where he also appeared to doze off during the meeting and took an impromptu tour of Elvis Presley’s Graceland.
The disclosure becomes especially embarrassing considering that Trump was actually at his Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, Florida, throughout the period for early in-person voting, which concluded on Sunday, March 22. The president had the opportunity to vote in person at a polling place approximately 20 minutes by car from his home, where his voter registration is located.
The SAVE America Act, which Trump has positioned as a fundamental requirement for restoring government operations and providing funding for the Transportation Security Administration, would mandate voters to show documentary citizenship verification during registration. A Senate amendment under consideration would place further limitations on mail-in voting, ending universal mail-in voting and permitting mail ballots only in specific circumstances, including illness, disability, military service, or travel. The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University cautions that the measure could prevent over 21 million Americans who don’t have convenient access to necessary documents from voting.
Trump has insisted that Senate Republicans abolish the filibuster to enact the disputed legislation, which encounters opposition even among members of his own party. Numerous red states have historically depended on mail-in voting to mobilize senior voters, generating Republican resistance to the bill from within.
White House spokesperson Olivia Wales characterized the disclosures as a “non-story” on Tuesday, referencing exemptions incorporated into the SAVE America Act.
Wales noted that the president resides in Palm Beach but “obviously primarily lives at the White House in Washington, D.C.” The statement failed to explain why Trump was present throughout the voting period at the Florida estate where his registration exists.
On Thursday, March 26, Trump addressed the matter personally during a Cabinet meeting at the White House. “You know what, because I’m president of the United States, I did a mail-in ballot for elections that took place in Florida,” he told reporters. “I decided that I was going to vote by mail-in ballot because I couldn’t be there, because I had a lot of different things.” Trump made no mention of his physical presence at Mar-a-Lago during the period for early in-person voting.
An additional legal matter has surfaced as well. Based on a March 27 report, the White House declined to provide information about whether anyone besides the president personally requested, collected, or submitted his ballot. Florida election law stipulates that only an immediate family member or legal guardian can manage someone else’s mail-in ballot.
This conduct follows a long-standing trend. Trump has cast mail-in ballots during his extended campaign against the method, going back to at least 2020. The president’s inconsistency regarding this matter has grown more apparent as he escalates his efforts to ban voting by mail.
In August 2025, Trump published on Truth Social promising to “lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS,” incorrectly asserting the United States was “the only Country in the World that uses Mail-In Voting” (which is not true) and that “ELECTIONS CAN NEVER BE HONEST WITH MAIL IN BALLOTS/VOTING.”
The special election at the center of this dispute concluded with a surprise win for Democrat Emily Gregory in Florida’s House District 87. Trump carried the district by approximately 11 points over Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024. Gregory’s new district includes Trump’s Mar-a-Lago country club, where the president keeps his voting registration.
For Barron Trump, this represents his involvement in one of his earliest elections as a recently qualified voter. His decision to vote by mail—or his parents’ decision to permit it—renders the circumstances even more remarkable considering his father’s unrelenting opposition to the method.
