President Donald Trump has again tried to exercise power in the US election, signing an executive order on Tuesday that aims to create a federal list of eligible voters and ask the United States Postal Service to deliver ballots by mail to people on those lists.
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The executive order, his second election-related one since taking office last year, is sure to be challenged in court soon. The US Constitution gives states the power to set voting laws and regulate their elections, although Congress has the power to set certain regulations, too.
“That’s a big deal,” Trump said when he signed the order in the Oval Office, adding that he did not believe it could be overturned by the courts. “I think this will be very helpful in the election. We would like to have voter ID. We would like to have proof of citizenship, that will be another time. We are working on that, you would think it would be easy.”
Two key players in the failed 2020 re-election bid that Trump lost — Kurt Olsen and Heather Honey — are involved in discussions about the executive order, according to a person familiar with the preparations. Olsen now serves as director of security and election integrity at the White House, while Honey serves in a senior position at the Department of Homeland Security.
Election experts say they expect the order to be considered unconstitutional in the courts.
“This is going to be blocked by federal courts before the ink is dry,” said David Becker, founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, which works to support election administrations.
“The Constitution clearly gives the states the power to regulate these matters related to sending ballots,” Becker continued. “The President was excluded by the founders from deciding the electoral policy in the states.”
Trump has long been determined to change the voting process in the US as he continues to lie about winning the 2020 election.
“I won three times. I went three times convincingly. But let’s go to the third victory, the New York Times. You would say, oh, Trump is going to lose. But I won locally.
Earlier this year, Trump also suggested that he would support redistricting at least in some areas, raising concerns among federal election officials.
“Republicans have to say: ‘We want to take over. We have to take the polls at least — in at most, 15 places,'” Trump said in an interview on a conservative podcast in February. “Republicans should do national voting.”
He signed an executive order in March of last year that sought to impose written proof of citizenship requirements to register to vote and cut funding to states that offer grace periods for ballots to arrive. The courts blocked many provisions of that order.
Trump also put pressure on Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would impose new proof of citizenship and voter ID requirements.
The legislation passed the House, but is stalled in the Senate, where it needs 60 votes to move forward under the chamber’s current rules.
