Trump’s new Executive Order to change voting procedures

Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order affecting voting regulations throughout the country.

The first part will require documentary, government-issued proof of U.S. citizenship on its voter registration form issued by the Election Assistance Commission.

This is intended to address the President’s long-standing opinion that many noncitizens are casting ballots in U.S. elections.

To emphasize the importance of this issue and strengthen its enforcement, the Executive Order states, “Agencies like the Department of Homeland Security, Social Security Administration and Department of State must provide states with access to Federal databases to verify eligibility and citizenship of individuals registering to vote.”

In addition, Trump instructed the Attorney General to make prosecuting non-citizen voting a priority.

In second part of the EO, Trump took actions to limit the counting of ballots that are received after election day in future elections. Future Federal funding for voting operations will be dependent on compliance with this limitation.

There is no provision for ballots that are post marked earlier than Election Day and received after the election. To be counted, ballots must be received before or on Election Day.

According to the data on the California Secretary of State’s website, mail ballots were 2.6% of ballots cast in 1962. At 14.1% in 1988, they exceeded 10 % of ballots cast for the first time. By 1994, they were more than 20% and ten years later, the 30% threshold was broken. By 2018, nearly two-thirds of ballots cast were by mail.

Beginning in 2020, in the midst of the COVID pandemic, 86.7% of ballots were cast by mail. In the 2021 Special Election, mail ballots exceeded 90 %. But last November, mail ballots fell to 80.8% of all ballots cast in the 2024 Presidential Election.

How many legal ballots were received and counted after Election Day is unknown, mail-in ballots now dominant the voting process in California.

In the EO, Trump said, “We’re going to fix our elections so that our elections are going to be honorable and honest and people leave and they know their vote is counted. We are going to have free and fair elections. And ideally, we go to paper ballots, same-day voting, proof of citizenship, very big, and voter ID, very simple.”

Questions are already being raised about the EO and its effectiveness. Not all States use the Federal voting forms. In many, either the EAC form or a State registration form is sufficient to register vote.

Further, the U.S. constitution generally leaves voting rules to the States. In Article I, Section 4: Elections, it states “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing [sic] Senators.”

This does not authorize the President to change or specify the place or manner voting, that seems to be the responsibility of Congress.

Another question pertains to the definition of “government issued proof of U.S. citizenship.” Not every citizen has a passport.