March 31, 2026
The president just signed an executive order to change the way Americans use mail in and absentee ballots to vote nationwide. This order doesn’t ban mail in or absentee ballots but it makes all voters and states that want to use them jump through a bunch of hoops….and it gives the post office a bunch of new authority to decide who gets to vote and who does not.
The executive order is titled Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections. There are two main elements to this order. I’m going to tell you about the elements first and then I’m going to tell you all about the very real legal issues with this order. Element number one – this order directs the secretary of homeland security to compile what trump calls the state citizenship list. The DHS will compile this list of eligible American citizens over the age of 18 based on federal citizenship and naturalization records, SSA (social security) records, save data, and other relevant federal databases. That list will be given to the states and then the states can cross reference that citizenship list with the voters they have on their voter rolls. Just being on the citizenship list isn’t enough voters would still have to register…this citizenship list just gives the state something to cross reference.
And element number two is giving the United States postal service a bunch of new authority over who can and can’t submit a mail in or absentee ballot. Trump’s order says 90 days prior to an election the state must notify USPS if it intends to use mail in or absentee ballots and within 60 days of the election the state must provide USPS with it’s own list of eligible voters within that state. And if your name isn’t on that list – the postal service will not deliver your mail in ballot or absentee ballot to you and will not deliver your mail in ballot or absentee ballot to your election official once you’ve completed it. Oh – and the executive order says that USPS will design a special envelop with a specific bar code on it that will be traced straight to you.
Ok – so there are a lot of issues with this. Let’s start with constitutional problems here. First of all article 1 section 4 of the constitution clearly and unequivocally gives the states the power to control their elections how they see fit and it gives congress the power to create laws to govern those federal elections. The constitution gives the president *zero* power to do anything related to the election. Nothing…including this.
Second – congress has not passed any federal law resembling what Trump just ordered – so it falls to the states to govern. And until congress makes it a federal issue. Trump can’t shoe horn this through to the states.
Third – and along that federal vs state power issue – the federal government does *not* get to deem which voter is eligible to vote by mail or vote absentee. The states get to decide how that process works. Not the president and certainly not the postal service. Since when does the post office get to say who gets a mail ballot or not? Who is going to watch to make sure these postal employees actually follow these lists? You mean the same USPS that is spread so thin? They’re going to have this added to their plate too? So many questions.
Then there are privacy issues.
Now this order says that all these citizenship lists that will be created by the federal government, the states and then held by USPS will comply with the Privacy act – but the US government doesn’t have a great track record of – especially recently with complying with that law. There have been a lot of lawsuits claiming the Trump administration has violated it. On top of that social security data is strictly protected and is not designed for voter eligibility screening not to mention bulk sharing of that personal data could not be legal.
Hand along with that privacy issue – it’s also important for you to know that homeland security has admitted that their data bases of US citizens are not fully complete. What happens if you are a legal US citizen and for some reason DHS can’t track your name down and your name doesn’t make it to this state citizenship lists? Then what? You’re not going to be allowed to vote?
Look – the fact is this executive order is going to be challenged immediately. In fact I’m shocked we haven’t seen a challenge yet. We’ll have to see if it ever takes effect.
Read the executive order here.
Read the fact sheet here.
Watch President Trump sign the order here.
