President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order that attempts to radically overhaul ballot access in the U.S. by requiring voters to show proof of citizenship when they register for federal elections.
The order also seeks to stop states from counting mail or absentee ballots that are postmarked by Election Day and arrive later by withholding funds from the states that count them.
The move comes after Trump’s years of false claims that the 2020 election he lost to former President Joe Biden was subject to widespread fraud.
After that election, the Associated Press contacted officials in six swing states and found 475 cases of potential voter fraud among more than 25 million ballots cast in the states.
In 2024, Trump repeatedly claimed that the only way he would lose the November election was if it were “rigged.” He and his allies also falsely suggested Democrats were letting migrants en masse into the country to vote.
Much of the president’s ire has been directed at mail-in ballots, which explains the crackdown on those that arrive after Election Day.
“Anytime you have a mail-in ballot, there is going to be massive fraud,” he told TV personality Phil McGraw in August, without offering any evidence.
Experts have found no evidence of systemic voter fraud in U.S. elections, including through mail-in or absentee ballots.
Trump’s order leapfrogs congressional Republicans, who are currently pushing the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, which would also require voters to prove their citizenship when registering for federal elections.
Experts have raised the alarm that such a requirement would amount to voter disenfranchisement.
A 2023 study by the Brennan Center for Justice, the University of Maryland and other groups found that nearly one in 10 U.S. citizens of voting age doesn’t have proof of citizenship immediately available.
“It is an illegal power grab that would block tens of millions from voting,” said Wendy Weiser, the Brennan Center’s vice president for democracy, of Trump’s executive order.
“This would prevent only a tiny amount of noncitizen voter registration but stop millions of eligible voters, who do not have easy access to documents such as passports from registering to vote,” wrote Rick Hasen, an elections law expert at the UCLA School of Law, in a blog post Tuesday. “The aim here is voter suppression pure and simple.”
Lisa Gilbert, the co-president of advocacy group Public Citizen, called Trump’s order “a blatant attack on democracy and an authoritarian power grab.”
“Donald Trump’s executive order would compromise our election systems, suppress the votes of millions of Americans, especially voters of color, and pave the way for still more Trumpian false claims of election fraud,” she said, in a statement.
The order, like other Trump administration executive actions, is likely to face court challenges.
“This is not a statute,” Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes told Democracy Docket. “This is an edict by fiat from the executive branch, and so every piece of it can be challenged through the regular judicial process.”
Fontes has already joined other Democratic attorneys general in lawsuits challenging Trump’s attempt to dismantle the Department of Education and the “virtually unchecked power” of senior White House adviser Elon Musk.
The American Civil Liberties Union suggested it will file a legal challenge, in a post on social media: “This is an extreme abuse of power—we’ll see him in court.”
