Donald Trump has signed a sweeping executive order giving himself far greater powers over US elections.
The new directive will require all voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship to register for federal elections, and demand that all ballots be received by election day.
The order, signed by the president on Tuesday, claimed the US has failed “to enforce basic and necessary election protections” and calls on states to work with federal agencies to share voter lists, and prosecute election crimes. States which do not comply with the new executive order could have their federal funding slashed.
Trump has long alleged widespread voter fraud in the US voting system, and claimed thousands of votes had been cast illegally when he denied the result of the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Joe Biden.
However, no evidence for such large-scale fraud has ever been established.
The 78-year-old has singled out postal voting in his rants on social media and at rallies, arguing without evidence it is insecure and invites fraud. Research in the US has repeatedly shown that fraudulent use of the mail voting system is rare, and does not occur to any level significant enough to influence the outcome of elections.
Voting rights groups have expressed concerns that the new requirement for proof of citizenship could disenfranchise people. An estimated 9% of U.S. citizens of voting age, or 21.3 million people, do not have proof of citizenship readily available, according to a 2023 report by the Brennan Center for Justice and other groups.
Others have raised concerns that married women who have changed their names will encounter trouble when trying to register, because their birth certificates list their maiden names. This follows issues that arose during recent town elections in New Hampshire, which has a new state law requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote.
Trump’s executive order, entitled ‘preserving and protecting the integrity of American elections’, directs federal agencies including the Department of Homeland Security, the Social Security Administration and the State Department to share federal data with election officials that could help them identify non-citizens.
It also says the US attorney general should “prioritise enforcement of federal election integrity laws” in states that do not currently share information about suspected election crimes with the federal government.
Another part of the order aims to require votes to be “cast and received” by election day, and says federal funding should be conditional on state compliance.
Currently, 18 states and US territory Puerto Rico accept postal ballots received after election day, as long they are marked as being posted on or before that date, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The executive order is likely to face challenges in the courts, as states are given significant powers over voting in the US constitution. Some lawmakers have already vowed to oppose the new measures, and Democrat elections lawyer Marc Elias said in a social media post: “This will not stand. We will sue.”
Mr Elias, a major figure in the fight against Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of 2020 election, was recently singled out by the president as one of “bad people, really bad people” who “tried to turn America into a corrupt communist and third-world country”.
His law firm was specifically targeted in a recent Trump memorandum entitled ‘Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and Federal Court’, which outlined sanctions on lawyers said to be making “frivolous” lawsuits against the US government.
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