A Vendor Mails 3,126 Maricopa County Ballots Six Days Early and Trump Says "There Were No Errors. Maricopa Sent Out Thousands of Ballots Illegally" — the Same Day He Tells Republicans to Vote by Mail "Because We Seem to Have No Choice," While Arizona's Secretary of State and the County's Republican Board Chair Push Back on the Recorder's Own Claim That the Post Office Shut Down in Phoenix
Runbeck Election Services, the vendor that prints and mails Maricopa County's early ballots, mistakenly released 3,126 of them on Oct. 1, 2026 — six days before the scheduled Oct. 7 mailing. County officials said every ballot went to the correct voter and remains valid, and Runbeck's CEO called it "pure accident, just a human error." Asked about it on the White House South Lawn on Oct. 5, President Trump rejected that explanation: "There were no errors. Maricopa sent out thousands of ballots illegally, and they got caught!" He called Maricopa "a very, very dishonest county." In the same exchange Trump told Republicans they could vote by mail "because we seem to have no choice," while repeating that there is "a lot of cheating in vote by mail" — two days after a Truth Social video urging supporters to vote "early, absentee, by mail, or in-person." Trump himself has voted by mail twice in Florida this year. The episode landed on top of a separate dispute inside Arizona: Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap, a Republican elected in 2024 with Trump's backing, had warned on Sept. 30 that early ballots would be delayed because "the post office closed down their central facility in Phoenix a year ago." The Postal Service said it had closed no Phoenix-area processing facility; Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said USPS assured his office the Phoenix center is "fully operational," and Republican Board of Supervisors Chair Kate Brophy McGee said election officials must "provide accurate information at all times." Early voting in Arizona begins Oct. 7.
“[To reporters on the White House South Lawn before leaving for Nebraska, asked about voting by mail:] But they can vote by mail if they want, because we seem to have no choice. … What we're concerned about is there seems to be a lot of- not seems to be, there is a lot of cheating in vote by mail.”