The 2026 primaries are resurfacing controversies about mail-in ballots that were at the heart of election disputes in 2020.

California’s June 2 primary – in which candidates from every party ran together and the top two advanced to the general election – raised eyebrows because of its so-called “red mirage.” A mirage is a misleading early count that can temporarily show a candidate ahead in a race, sometimes by a significant margin.

For example, early Election Day returns showed Republican Steve Hilton leading for California governor and Republican Spencer Pratt among the top two candidates for Los Angeles mayor. However, 4 out of 5 California voters return their ballots by mail, so as additional mail ballots were counted, leads changed. Hilton narrowly held on to second place, but Pratt fell into third place and off the November ballot entirely.

Rumors swirled that a late “ballot dump” in Los Angeles had seen Pratt receiving zero votes out of 24,000. These reports were debunked by PolitiFact, but they were reminiscent of claims six years ago.

In the 2020 presidential election, when Donald Trump led early in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and other crucial states, only to have that lead evaporate under the weight of mail ballots, he claimed a rigged election. This year, those claims returned, as Trump declared on Truth Social, his social media platform, on June 8: “Not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the L.A. runoffs after the big lead he had. 3rd World Nation. Rigged Elections!”

I am the associate director of the Institute of American Civics, and my teaching and research focuses on American political institutions, elections and public policy. I’ve been writing about American elections since 1992, and over the past three decades, I’ve followed with interest the growth of mail voting.

The controversy over mail ballot elections has become a microcosm of our polarized politics, with one narrative assuming mass fraud lies behind every electoral mirage, and another denying that there can be legitimate concerns about mail ballot elections. Both narratives warrant scrutiny.

The national picture

Today, eight states use all mail ballot elections: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington. In those states, registered voters are automatically sent a ballot. Voters may deliver their completed ballots in person to an early voting station or to an Election Day polling place. Most, however, simply return the ballot the same way it came, via the U.S. Postal Service.

Another 29 states require voters to submit a request for a mailed absentee ballot but do not require an excuse such as illness or absence.

Three dozen states require mailed ballots to be received by election officials on or before Election Day, while the remainder allow votes to arrive later, as long as they are postmarked by Election Day.

More than two dozen states, including California and most other mail-ballot states, either explicitly or implicitly permit a practice referred to as “ballot harvesting” or “ballot collection,” in which activists can collect ballots from voters and deliver them to election offices or official collection boxes.

The Trump narrative

Trump argues that the “red mirage” is by itself evidence of election rigging. However, there is good reason to challenge such a claim.

Pratt, the Los Angeles mayoral candidate, was running in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans roughly 4 to 1. Pratt’s defeat does not require extraordinary explanations. To the contrary, his defeat has a very ordinary explanation – as do most mirages.

Even without mailed ballots, states where there was a systematic lag between vote counts in rural and urban areas could experience dramatically shifting results, too.

In the mail-ballot era, analysts know that different groups of voters sometimes cast their ballots in different ways. California, for example, will regularly experience a pronounced red mirage because Democrats are more likely than Republicans to return their votes by mail, while GOP voters are more likely than Democrats to vote in person.

Additionally, mail ballots are often accepted after Election Day, Democratic-affiliated advocacy groups are more experienced than Republicans in ballot harvesting, and in-person early and Election Day ballots, along with mail ballots received before Election Day, are counted first. Mail ballots received on or after Election Day are counted later.

Other states, with different party norms and election rules, experience different results. In “Divided We Stand,” a book about the 2020 elections, my co-author, John J. Pitney Jr., and I discuss blue mirages that have appeared in Texas and Ohio.

These mirages are not a new phenomenon: In 1982, Democrat Tom Bradley’s Election Day lead for governor of California was proved a mirage after Republican George Deukmejian overtook him as absentee ballots came in. Back then, Republicans were most likely to vote by mail.

Ballots are inspected the day after California’s primary election at the Los Angeles County Ballot Processing Center on June 3, 2026.
Jae C. Hong/AP Photo

The problems with mail ballots

These easily explained mirages don’t necessarily mean that mail-ballot fraud is a nonissue and that there is nothing to be concerned about.

One June 2026 analysis in The Guardian contends that California’s election system “is working as designed: to protect against fraud and assure every vote is counted.” Like Trump’s claims, however, this too requires scrutiny.

In 2005, a bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform, headed by former president Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker, found absentee voting to be susceptible to fraud, intimidation and vote-buying, and recommended that states prohibit third parties from handling absentee ballots as one solution.

In reality, fraud in ballots sent and returned by mail – either all-mail ballot or absentee – has occurred on a large enough scale to invalidate a 2018 U.S. House election in North Carolina, a 1997 mayoral election in Miami and a 2020 municipal election in Paterson, New Jersey, among others. It’s also produced numerous absentee vote scandals in Texas.

Mail-in critics also note that none of the eight all-mail ballot states require a copy of photo identification when completing a ballot, though supporters argue that other fraud prevention measures – like signature verification and online ballot tracking – are sufficiently rigorous.

Read more:
Mail-in voting is safe and reliable – 5 essential reads

Absentee or mail-in ballot vote fraud estimates vary. A November 2025 Brookings Institution analysis of the 2016 through 2022 general elections found about four cases of mail-voting fraud out of every 10 million mail votes. The Heritage Foundation found roughly 400 cases since 2000.

There are reasons to believe this understates the problem, though. In cases of large-scale organized fraud – the kind that can challenge the integrity of the electoral system – it is typical that only candidates or political organizers are charged with a crime. In the 1997 Miami mayoral race vote fraud scandal, for example, after several hundred absentee ballots were proved fraudulent, courts invalidated them all; still, only about 57 individuals were charged. Further, it would be unrealistic to assume every instance of election fraud is detected and results in even one arrest.

Other concerns

Electoral mirages are not by themselves proof of fraud, but fraud in mail ballot elections is a valid concern – and it is not the only valid concern.

Ballot harvesting, for example, lends itself to social pressure, can impinge on the secret ballot and gives outsize influence to organized interests.

The potential for fraud and long delays in tabulation can undermine confidence in elections, especially when voters have formed expectations of efficient and competent election administration. Older voters remember close national elections – in 1960, 1976 and 2004 – when results were known the next day.

In any event, convenience from mail voting does not always translate into more voters.

In California’s all-mail ballot election in 2024, voter turnout was 62.1%; in Florida, which limits mail voting to absentee ballots that voters must request, prohibits vote harvesting and requires absentee ballots to arrive by Election Day – all of which makes it harder to vote by mail – voter turnout was 66.7%.

Colorado and Hawaii – both all-mail ballot states – were toward the top and the bottom of turnout rates in 2024: Colorado had 73.1% turnout and Hawaii 50.3%.

The next election

In my analysis, whatever the temptations of partisan tribalism, neither narrative around mail ballots can be taken at face value. One automatically ascribes fraud to results that are often predictable, even routine; the other dismisses legitimate concerns as conspiracy theories.

Mirages will continue to occur, especially in states that use all-mail ballot elections, states that allow no-excuse absentee voting and states where votes can arrive after Election Day. A better-informed public would be better prepared to understand mirages when they occur – and better able to focus on more meaningful conversations about both the pros and cons of mail ballot elections.