New York (AP) – President Donald Trump Tuesday, signed an executive action for revising elections in the United States, in particular by demanding Documentary proof of citizenship 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 because states have great authority to establish their own electoral rules, is in accordance with long history Balustrade against electoral processes. It often Complaint elections are underwayeven Before the results were known, and led battles against certain voting methods since He lost 2020 elections to the Democrat Joe Biden And the wrong blamed On generalized fraud.
Trump has focused in particular on voting by mailArguing without evidence that he is not sure and invites fraud when he moved his position on the question given his popularity with voters, including the Republicans. While fraud occurs, It’s rarelimited in the scope and is prosecuted.
The documentary proof of the citizenship order indicates that the president does not expect that the Republicans of the Congress adopt their expectations JUMPOr Save Act, who aimed to do the same thing.
The Republicans defended this measure necessary to restore public confidence in the elections. Voting in federal elections 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. Such hiccups have occurred During the recent elections of the city in New Hampshire, which has a new state law demanding that proof of citizenship is registered to vote.
Trump’s ordinance orders federal agencies, including the Ministry of Internal Security, the Social Security Administration and the State Department to share with federal elections data that could help them identify non-citizens on their lists.
He also indicates that the Attorney General should “prioritize the application of federal laws on the integrity of the elections” in states that do not share information on alleged electoral crimes with the federal government.
The order aims to demand that the votes be “expressed and received” on the day of the ballot and affirms that federal funding should be conditional to the conformity of the state. Currently, 18 states and Puerto Rico Accept the postal ballots by post received after election day As long as they are hidden by post at the latest at that date, according to the National Conference of States Legislatures.
Trump’s order is likely to deal with judicial disputes, 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”.
Democratic representative Joe Morelle from New York, classification member of the Chamber Committee who supervises the elections, said that the executive decree “was not only wrong – he is immoral and illegal”.
At least one democratic lawyer threatened legal action on Tuesday. Marc Elias, who was the subject of Trump’s anger, said in an article on social networks: “This will not remain. We will continue.”
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 ordering federal agencies to take action to stimulate the recording of voters, which attracted Republican complaints Who called him Federal Overreach. Trump canceled this order.
Trump’s order calls on the election assistance commission to modify the voting system guidelines to protect the integrity of the elections, including the advice according to which voting systems should not use a voting bulletin that uses a barcode or QR code in the voting count process. He said the Commission should condition the funding it distributes to the States on these new directives.
Almost all voters in person in Georgia, as well as voters of several other states, use voting machines with a large touch screen to record their votes. The machines then print a paper ballot with a summary readable by the man of the voter selections and a QR code, a type of barcode, which is read by a scanner to count the votes.
It is not quite clear how the decree would affect Georgia and the other jurisdictions that use these machines. The representatives of the secretary of state Brad Raffensperger did not immediately respond Tuesday evening to the messages asking for comments. Raffensperger published a statement thanking Trump for the decree, calling it “great 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”.
Mike Lindell, an ally of Trump who propagates electoral plots and who wants to prohibit voting systems in favor of voting ballots in hand, collected new collections on Tuesday, saying in an email that he would repair our “sick elections”.
Trump’s executive order intervenes as a national republican committee launched a massive effort To probe the maintenance of the list of voters’ recordings on a national scale. The Committee has sent requests for public files this week to request documents related to the maintenance of the list of electoral reports in 48 states and Washington, DC, affirming that the public should know how the states abolish non-eligible electoral lists, including the dead and non-citizens.
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.
___
Cassidy reported to Atlanta. The editors of the Associated Press Will Weissert in Washington and Kate Brumback in Atlanta contributed to this report.
___
The Associated Press receives the support of several private foundations to improve its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. Find out more about the AP democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
