Vladimir Putin, at a meeting with American President Donald Trump, explained that he lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden due to the imperfections of the US electoral system. Trump mentioned this in an interview with Fox News. «He said: „Your elections were rigged because you have mail-in voting“. Vladimir Putin, a smart guy, said that there cannot be fair elections with mail-in voting», — Trump shared the new information. Additionally, citing Putin's statement, the US President claimed that currently there is not a single country in the world that uses such a voting method.
According to Putin, mail-in voting is an «undemocratic procedure» because a ballot sent in this way passes through many hands, the head of the White House reported.
Meanwhile, mail-in voting exists in many countries around the world, for example, in the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Canada, Switzerland, and others. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) and the US Election Assistance Commission noted that the level of confirmed cases of fraud in mail-in voting is extremely low. In the US, for the period from 2000 to 2020, about 0.00006% of ballots with violations were found.
Prior to this, Trump repeatedly stated that he won the 2020 election and also urged his Republican colleagues to make more efforts to change the US electoral system. At the same time, Trump himself voted by mail in some previous elections and encouraged his supporters to do so in 2024.
Vladimir Putin «extended» his powers and changed the Constitution through voting «on stumps», which the CEC considered a «democratic procedure».