Trump issues executive order seeking greater federal control of elections 

President Donald Trump issued an executive order Tuesday that threatens states with the loss of federal election grants unless they comply with a broad list of requirements concerning the administration of elections.

The order makes numerous inaccurate and misleading claims about American elections, many of which mirror older allegations that Trump made regularly on the campaign trail. Those include claims that voter rolls are riddled with non-citizens registered to vote in federal elections, something that state and local election officials, experts, courts and numerous post-election audits have repeatedly debunked.

The order would put federal agencies — including the Election Assistance Commission, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice — in charge of vetting and verifying state claims around proof of citizenship and non-citizen voting.

The order specifically  directs the EAC to update federal voting forms to require “documentary proof” of citizenship. This includes a U.S. passport, REAL IDs,  military IDs, and any federal or state identification that explicitly affirms U.S. citizenship. The order then directs the EAC — an independent agency established by Congress in 2002 — “to take all appropriate action to cease providing Federal funds to States” that do not accept and use the new national forms. It would also explicitly empower the DOGE administrator, along with DHS, to “review” state voter registration lists and other records to identify non-citizen voters.

The order also aims to require the EAC to revise  the voluntary voting system guidelines  used by states. Additionally, it mandates that all voting machines be recertified to comply with these new new standards six months after they are put in place. 

Like a voter fraud commission that was established by Trump in 2017, the order seeks to acquire detailed state and local data about their residents and voters to cross reference with federal databases. States almost uniformly rejected those requests the first time around.

“This will go a long way toward ending” election fraud, Trump said during Tuesday’s signing ceremony, adding that “there are other steps that we will be taking in the coming weeks.”

The executive order claims that America’s “patchwork of voting methods” lead to “basic chain of custody” issues with voting, compared to countries like Germany and Canada, where elections “require use of paper ballots, [and are] counted in public by local officials.”

While U.S. elections, which are run primarily at the local and state level, are indeed a patchwork system, former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly told The Washington Post last year that more than 97% of registered voters “will cast their ballots in jurisdictions where they will get a paper record that they themselves can verify.” Additionally, many election jurisdictions across the country conduct public audits of their elections.

Further, numerous studies, investigations and audits have shown that while non-citizen voting is vanishingly rare, there are millions of eligible American voters who lack the specific forms of identification outlined in the executive order.

David Becker, executive director for the Center for Election Innovation and Research, told CyberScoop that the order suggests funding provided under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) — which was passed by Congress to help states upgrade their voting and election technologies  — could be withheld from states that do not comply with Trump’s order.

But Becker emphasized that HAVA grants, along with a population-based formula for calculating the amount each state gets, is “enshrined in law and passed by Congress in a bipartisan act.”

HAVA “does not place conditions on those grants, and Congress holds the purse strings exclusively here under the Constitution, not based on whether the president likes the state,” Beckner said.

A near-certain constitutional challenge

The order will almost certainly be challenged on constitutional grounds.

 The U.S. Constitution explicitly grants states the responsibility to determine the “times, places and manner” of federal elections, though it also gives Congress the right to make laws or alter state election rules.

Marc Elias, a Democratic lawyer with a history of legal wins on election-related litigation, described the order as “massive voter suppression” and threatened legal action.

“This will not stand. We will sue,” Elias wrote.

Elias’ law firm did not immediately respond to a request for further details on the potential lawsuit or its claims.

Jamal Greene, a law professor at Columbia University, said the executive branch “does not have the constitutional or statutory authority to dictate the content of voter registration forms.”

Rick Hasen, a law professor at UCLA who specializes in election law, said that HAVA, which led to the creation of the EAC, charges the commission with handing out federal grants for election upgrades and certifying election equipment. It does not give the president or the commission the authority to direct or enforce state ID requirements for voters.

“If a President can control the EAC, it could direct the agency to do all kinds of things that could benefit the President’s party,” Hasen wrote. “It would flout the bipartisan, balanced approach of the EAC.”

A spokesperson from the National Association of Secretaries of State told CyberScoop the organization is reviewing the executive order and has shared it with members, but referred requests for comment or reaction to individual states.

Becker also highlighted the possibility that changes made to the voluntary voting system guidelines used by states on such a short timeline could lead to mass decertification of voting machines that would require “tens of billions of dollars” in emergency voting and equipment replacements by the state.  

“You could see technology decertified all across the nation and because of the current timing, we’re literally talking about this occurring a year before a major federal election,” Becker said. “Which begs the question: why? Why is [Trump] not going through Congress? Why is he not going to states for this discussion?”

Becker then added: “It could be the White House intends to create chaos around our elections in the coming year.”