Trump vows voter ID requirements for the midterms, ‘whether approved by Congress or not’

President Donald Trump said in social media posts Friday that he will issue an executive order requiring voters to show identification in the midterm elections if Congress does not act.

“If we can’t get it passed by Congress, there are legal reasons why this scam is not allowed. I will present them shortly, in the form of an executive order,” Trump said in his message.

In another, he writes: “There will be voter identification for the midterm elections, whether approved by Congress or not!

Trump called on Republicans to “nationalize” and “take over” election administration. Although Congress can pass federal regulations, the Constitution provides that “the times, places, and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the legislature thereof.”

Trump’s most recent messages outline the next steps the president is considering if Congress fails to pass the legislation he wants.

Trump has repeatedly pushed Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would overhaul elections nationwide, including requiring voters to show photo ID and placing new restrictions on mail-in ballots.

The House passed the SAVE America Act on Wednesday, with all Republicans voting in favor of the legislation. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas was the only Democrat to vote in favor of the law.

Nate Persily, a law professor at Stanford University, said an executive order requiring changes to elections would be unconstitutional.

“The constitution is clear on this point. There are many things it is ambiguous about, but it does not provide unilateral regulatory authority for the election of the president,” Persily said.

He said the only way to bypass state procedures would be for Congress to pass a law, such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Trump has previously attempted to use an executive order to change election laws. In March, he issued an order to require people to prove their citizenship when registering to vote, impose deadlines on mail-in voting, and more.

A federal judge issued a permanent injunction against the order in January, ruling that the president does not have the authority to unilaterally change election procedures.

Rick Hasen, director of the Saving Democracy Project at UCLA Law School, said that with the January ruling, he expects that “any order that would force states to comply with a Trump-mandated voter ID law would also be found unconstitutional.”

The SAVE America Act requires states to obtain documentary proof of citizenship “in person” before they can register to vote in a federal election. These documents could include a U.S. passport or birth certificate, for example.

The bill now awaits consideration by the Senate, which requires an unlikely threshold of 60 votes to pass.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was the first Republican senator to speak out against the bill, reminding her Republican colleagues last week that they claimed to be against federal election mandates for states as recently as 2021.

Democrats say voter ID laws are designed to disenfranchise people, pointing to data that non-citizen voting is already illegal and rare. Current law requires voters to attest to their citizenship under oath, with violators subject to criminal penalties.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the proposal “would impose Jim Crow-style laws on the entire country and it’s dead on its way to the Senate.”

Persily highlighted Trump’s desire to nationalize the election and the FBI’s recent seizure of ballots and voter records from Fulton County, Georgia, as Trump continues to make false claims that he won the 2020 election.

“This isn’t an isolated tweet here, is it?” Persily said Friday about Trump’s messages. “There’s a lot going on. So you have the action in the Legislature, in Congress, you have these, the previous executive order, you have the seizure of ballots and other documents from Fulton County, right? And so all of that is one with the desire to have greater federal oversight of elections.”