A panel for a new registration of voters is observed outside a survey place at La Pinkerton Academy in Derry, NH, Tuesday March 11, 2025. (AP photo / Reba Saldanha)Reba Saldanha / The Associated Press
President Donald Trump signed an action on Tuesday to revise elections in the United States, in particular by demanding documentary evidence of citizenship to register to vote in the federal elections and demand that all the ballots be received on the day of the ballot.
The ordinance indicates that the United States has failed “to apply the protections of the basic and necessary elections” and calls on states to work with federal agencies to share the lists of voters and continue the electoral crimes. He threatens to draw federal funding from the states where electoral officials do not comply.
This decision, which is likely to deal with rapid challenges of voting rights organizations, is in accordance with the long history of Trump’s balustrade against electoral processes. He often claims that the elections are faked, even before the results were known, and led battles against certain voting methods since he lost the 2020 elections against the Democrat Joe Biden and has falsely attributed to general fraud.
Trump particularly focused on voting by mail, arguing without evidence that he is not sure and invites fraud when he moved his position on the issue given his popularity with voters, including republicans. Although fraud occurs, it is rare, limited and has been prosecuted.
The documentary evidence of the order of citizenship notes that the president does not wait for the Republicans of the Congress to adopt their law on safeguarding the safeguarding of the safeguard, the American eligibility law, or the safeguard law, which aimed to do the same.
The Republicans defended this measure necessary to restore public confidence in the elections. Voting by non-citizens is already illegal and can lead to crime accusations and expulsion.
The voting rights groups have expressed their concern about the priority of the requirement. According to a 2023 report, 9% of American citizens of the voting age, or 21.3 million people, are not proven of available citizenship, according to a 2023 report by Brennan Center for Justice and other groups.
It is also feared that married women who have changed their names encounter problems when they try to register because their birth certificates list their young girl names. These hiccups occurred during the recent city elections in New Hampshire, which has a new law of the State requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote.
The ordinance also indicates that the votes should be “expressed and received” on election day and affirms that federal funding should be conditional to the conformity of the state. Currently, 18 states and Puerto Rico accept the voting bulletins by post received after election day as long as they are hidden by post at the latest on that date, according to the National Conference of States Legislatures.
Trump’s decree is likely to face legal challenges, since the Constitution gives authority over the elections to the States. While the congress has the power to regulate the vote – and has done so to adopt laws such as the law on voting rights – the Constitution clearly indicates that the states have the main power to define the “time, places and ways” for the elections.
The Secretary of State Democratic State of Colorado, Jena Griswold, described the order of an “illegal” weapon of the federal government and said that Trump “was trying to make voters more difficult to retaliate against the ballot box”.
The executive power has a certain authority over the elections, said Justin Levitt, expert in constitutional law and former main political advisor of the White House during the Biden administration. He said some federal agencies provide elections, including the US election assistance committee, which distributes a federal subsidy to the States and manages a voluntary certification program for voting systems. The American Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Agency helps electoral officials to protect their systems.
Former President Biden published a decree in 2021 by ordering federal agencies to take measures to stimulate the recording of voters, which aroused complaints of republicans who called him Federal Overeach. Trump has since canceled this order.
Several Republican and electoral officials quickly applauded Trump’s decision, including Brad Raffensperger, the Secretary of State in Georgia. The state -based voting accounting system based on the state bars does not correspond to the standards that Trump has requested in order and should change so as not to compromise federal state funding.
“Thank you, President Trump, for this decree, assuring that only American citizens decide the US elections,” said Raffensperger. “This is an excellent first step for the reform of the integrity of the elections nationwide.”
Representative Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, chairman of the Chamber Committee supervising the elections, said that order is a “welcome action to guarantee our elections and prevent foreign influence”.
Trump refers to electoral fraud when he signed the order on Tuesday, saying: “It will end, hope it.” He added that more electoral measures would be taken in the coming weeks.
