Trump Signs Order Requiring Citizenship Proof for Voting in Federal Elections
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday aimed at increasing proof of citizenship requirements for voter registration, which opponents fear may disenfranchise poor and elderly voters who do not have easy access to citizenship credentials such as passports or birth certificates.
The order requires the Election Assistance Commission to require persons to provide government-issued evidence of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections, and state or local officials to record and verify the information. It also intends to force states to count ballots by Election Day.
The order, which also includes adjustments to mail-in ballot deadlines and voting equipment, has the potential to disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans. Election law experts questioned Trump's ability to make the changes, predicting that the order will almost certainly be challenged in court.
Federal law now requires voters to affirm under oath that they are citizens and entitled to vote when they register, and courts have barred states from requiring documented evidence of citizenship for voters in federal contests as a result of such legislation.
Trump's order asks the Election Assistance panel, an independent, nonpartisan panel that assists election officials, to revise its voter registration form and require voters to provide U.S. passports or other government ID proving citizenship in order to register to vote.
Trump's directive authorizes the EAC to impose the requirement and deduct election funds from states that do not enforce it for voters who register using the federal form. The EAC currently consists of two Democratic and two Republican appointees.
“The U.S. Election Assistance Commission is carefully reviewing the President’s Executive Order and determining the next steps in enhancing the integrity of voter registration and state and federal elections,” EAC Chairman Donald Palmer said in a statement. "We also anticipate consulting with state and local election officials."
Election experts said the ruling was likely to be contested in court.
"A whole lot of this is illegal," said Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the Voting Rights Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law.
Republicans in Congress have presented the SAVE Act, a plan that would demand documented evidence of citizenship. It would allow voters to use their birth certificates as proof of citizenship, but election officials and campaigners worry that it would still disenfranchise many qualified voters who do not have easy access to these papers.
The presidential order also proposes significant modifications, such as outlawing the use of QR codes in election equipment. These modifications would require governments to purchase and install new electoral technology at a substantial expense. The ruling also demands that all votes be received by Election Day, in an attempt to overturn states that allow postal ballots postmarked on Election Day to be accepted later.
Trump has also directed his attorney general to take "enforcement action" against states that accept postal votes delivered after Election Day. Approximately 20 states presently do this, including some battleground states, and the practice was the subject of GOP lawsuit in the run-up to the 2024 election, despite the fact that many of those jurisdictions need a postmark indicating the votes were mailed before Election Day.
