President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order on Tuesday, aiming to overhaul American elections by requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration.
The order, which includes various changes such as extending mail-in ballot deadlines and modifying election equipment, could potentially disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans. Election law experts questioned Trump’s authority to make these changes, asserting that the order is highly likely to face legal challenges.
Federal law mandates that voters swear under perjury that they are citizens and eligible to vote when registering. Courts have prevented states from implementing documentary proof-of-citizenship requirements for federal races due to these laws.
In contrast, Trump’s order directs the Election Assistance Commission, an independent and bipartisan commission that supports election officials, to revise its voter registration form and mandate that voters present U.S. passports or other government-issued IDs that demonstrate citizenship to register to vote.
According to the State Department, approximately half of Americans possessed U.S. passports last year. However, the order excludes birth certificates as an acceptable proof of citizenship. Additionally, some of the other ID records suggested by the executive order, such as REAL IDs and military identification cards, may not always indicate citizenship.
The order asserts that these actions are intended to prevent noncitizens from voting, although there is no substantial evidence of their significant presence in the United States. Voting as a noncitizen constitutes a serious crime that leaves a paper trail that must be regularly reviewed by election officials.
Trump has consistently criticized noncitizen voting as part of his unfounded claims of election fraud.
Election experts anticipate that the order will face legal challenges.
“A significant portion of this is illegal,” remarked Sean Morales-Doyle, the director of the Voting Rights Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law.
Presidents, as pointed out by Morales-Doyle and other election law experts in the hours following the order’s signing, lack authority over the Election Assistance Commission or elections.
Justin Levitt, a constitutional law scholar at Loyola Law School, clarified that the president has virtually no power over federal elections. As the senior policy adviser for democracy and voting rights during the previous administration, Levitt emphasized the president’s limited power over federal elections, which was intentionally designed.
The Constitution grants Congress and the states the authority to regulate the “times, places, and manner of holding elections.”
In response, Republicans in Congress have introduced the SAVE Act, a documentary proof-of-citizenship requirement bill. This bill would permit voters to use their birth certificates as proof of citizenship, although election officials and advocates caution that it would still disenfranchise many eligible voters who lack easy access to these documents.
The executive order also introduces several significant changes, including prohibiting certain election equipment that utilizes QR codes. These changes would necessitate substantial costs for states as they must purchase and install new election equipment. Additionally, the order mandates that all ballots must be received by Election Day, an attempt to override states that permit mail ballots postmarked by Election Day to be received after the deadline.
Furthermore, the order requests the Department of Government Efficiency and federal agencies to thoroughly review state voter rolls in search of ineligible voters. Levitt noted that this approach has not been feasible for Republicans in the past when attempting to identify voter fraud.
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