Trump signs an executive order to create federal voter lists

President Donald Trump again attempted to exert control over U.S. elections, signing an executive order Tuesday to create federal lists of citizens and direct the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail-in ballots only to people on those lists.

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The decree, the second election-related one since he took office last year, will likely be immediately challenged in court. The U.S. Constitution gives states the power to set voting rules and administer their own elections, although Congress also has the ability to establish certain regulations.

“This is a big deal,” Trump said as he signed the order in the Oval Office, adding that he did not believe it could be overturned by the courts. “I think it will help a lot with the elections. We would like to have a voter ID. We would like to have proof of citizenship, and that’s another topic for another time. We’re working on it, you’d think it would be easy.”

The order directs the Department of Homeland Security to create “state citizenship lists” from federal citizenship and naturalization records, Social Security records, and other federal databases.

These lists would then be sent to states to verify their voter rolls, as well as to the USPS, which would be asked only to forward ballots addressed to people on state citizenship lists. It is unclear how the USPS, a chronically underfunded agency, would assume the mandate to control election mail as required by the order.

Two key players in the unsuccessful effort to overturn the 2020 election lost by Trump – Kurt Olsen and Heather Honey – were involved in discussions around the executive order, according to a person familiar with the preparations. Olsen now works as director of election security and integrity at the White House, while Honey holds a senior position at the Department of Homeland Security.

Election experts said they expected the order to be found unconstitutional by the courts.

“This will be blocked by the federal courts before the ink is dry,” said David Becker, founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, which works to support election administrators.

“The Constitution clearly gives the authority to regulate these matters related to absentee ballots to the states,” Becker continued. “Policymakers prevented the president from dictating electoral policy to the states. »

Trump has long aimed to change the voting process in the United States as he continues to falsely claim he won the 2020 election.

“I won three times. I went there convincingly three times,” he said Tuesday after signing the order.

Earlier this year, Trump also suggested he supported nationalizing elections in at least some areas, which alarmed state election officials.

“Republicans should say, ‘We want to take power. We should take control of the vote in at least 15 places,'” Trump said in an interview on a conservative podcast in February. “Republicans should nationalize the vote. »

He signed an executive order in March of last year that attempted to impose requirements for documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote and cut funding to states that provide a grace period for mail-in ballots to arrive. The courts blocked many provisions of this order.

Trump also pressured Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would impose new requirements for proof of citizenship and voter identification.

The bill passed the House but is stalled in the Senate, where it needs 60 votes to advance under current House rules.