President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday aimed at overhauling the US election system, claiming the country has “failed to enforce basic and necessary election protections.”
This comes as the Republican National Committee (RNC) launched a nationwide initiative to examine voter registration maintenance. The RNC sent public records requests this week seeking documents related to voter roll list maintenance in 48 states and Washington, DC, asserting that the public should know how states are removing ineligible people from voter rolls, including the deceased and non-citizens.
Trump also declared “more election actions” would be taken in coming weeks.
India mentioned in executive order
The order specifically references India and Brazil as examples of nations implementing advanced voter identification systems.
“Despite pioneering self-government, the United States now fails to enforce basic and necessary election protections employed by modern, developed nations, as well as those still developing. India and Brazil, for example, are tying voter identification to a biometric database, while the United States largely relies on self-attestation for citizenship,” the order said.
Voter lists
As part of the overhaul, states are required to prosecute election crimes and share voter lists with federal agencies. States where election officials don’t follow the directive will lose their federal government funding.
Additionally, the order directs the attorney general to “prioritize enforcement of federal election integrity laws” in states which do not inform the federal government about suspected election crimes.
Documentary proof of US citizenship
To prevent voting in federal elections by non-Americans, which is already illegal and can result in felony charges and deportation, the order requires voters to provide documentary proof of their US citizenship. Agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Social Security Administration and the State Department, will have to share federal data to help election officials identify non-citizens on states’ rolls.
However, voting rights groups have expressed concerns the citizenship requirement provision could “disenfranchise” people. Around 9% of American citizens of voting age, or 21.3 million (2.13 crore) people, do not have proof of citizenship readily available, according to a 2023 report by the Brennan Center for Justice and other groups.
There are also concerns married women who have changed their names will face trouble when trying to register because their birth certificates list their maiden names. Such hiccups happened in recent town elections in New Hampshire, which has a new state law requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote.
Votes to be ‘polled and received’ by Election Day
The order aims to have votes to be “cast and received” by Election Day and says federal funding should be conditional on compliance by states. Currently, 18 states and Puerto Rico accept mailed ballots received after Election Day as long the ballots are postmarked on or before that date, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Vote counting
Trump’s order calls on the Election Assistance Commission to “amend” voting system guidelines to “protect” election integrity, including guidance that voting systems should not use a ballot that uses a barcode or QR code in the vote counting process.
Virtually all in-person voters in Georgia, as well as voters in multiple other states, use voting machines with a large touchscreen to record votes. The machines then print a paper ballot with a human-readable summary of the voter’s selections and a QR code, a type of barcode, that is read by a scanner to count the votes.
Legal challenges expected
The move is expected to be challenged, as the US Constitution gives states the authority to hold elections. While Congress has the power to regulate voting, the Constitution makes clear that states have primary authority to set the “times, places and manner” for elections.
Already at least one Democratic attorney has threatened legal action. Marc Elias, who has been the subject of Trump’s ire, said in a social media post: “This will not stand. We will sue.”
