Jimmy Carter: 'I Approve the Use of Absentee Ballots'

Former President Jimmy Carter on Thursday came out in favor of absentee ballots after the White House and Attorney General William Barr cited his 2005 report on mail-in voting to argue against it.

"I approve the use of absentee ballots and have been using them for more than five years," Carter said in a statement.

The Carter Center notes that the former president already endorsed the use of absentee ballots in May, when he called on "political leaders across the country to take immediate steps to expand vote-by-mail and other measures that can help protect the core of American democracy — the right of our citizens to vote."

Barr on Wednesday claimed that Carter's nonpartisan 2005 Commission on Federal Election Reform found that "mail-in voting is fraught with the risk of fraud and coercion."

The report, which was co-chaired by Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker, concluded that when safeguards were in place, "there was little evidence of voter fraud," according to Carter's May statement.

"The commission's main recommendations on vote-by-mail and absentee voting were to increase research on vote-by-mail (and early voting) and to eliminate the practice of allowing candidates or party workers to pick up and deliver absentee ballots," the statement noted.

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