As Election Day 2025 is upon us, President Donald Trump is still calling for the elimination of mail-in ballots and early voting. He wants to limit voting to same-day, in-person voting only. However, his opinion is contrary to the official position of the Republican Party. Instead, party officials having been trying to get Republicans to embrace early forms of voting. As early as August, the President was threatening to issue an Executive Order eliminating early voting claiming it is “rigged.” However, most legal experts say he has no power to do so. Experts agree that states are not mere agents of the federal government when it comes to elections. Instead, states have the power to control their own election processes. In 2020 during COVID, nearly 70 percent of people who voted for President voted prior to election day. In 2024, the figure was 60 percent. This year, California mailed 23 million ballots to its voters and over 4 million ballots –more than 18 percent were received two weeks before the election for the redistricting proposition. In New York City, during the first week of early voting, more than 164,000 ballots were cast in the mayoral race between Democrat Zohran Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa. In some states, mail-in ballots are the primary way of voting. That’s the case in Utah, Oregon and Washington. Contrary to Trump, some Republican officials are urging GOP voters to promote early voting and to “work it” to up Republican turnout. Presidential power to impact voting methods in states is the topic of this new episode of Next Witness Please. Retired judges Gayle Williams-Byers and Thomas Hodson also discuss Trump’s strategies of casting doubt on election results preceding the 2026 mid-term elections.