Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments.
President Trump has signed a second executive order purporting to regulate federal elections (especially mail ballots). His first executive order from March 2025 has already been enjoined in key parts for violating the Constitution. As Judge Kollar-Kotelly wrote in one of the opinions, “Put simply, our Constitution does not allow the President to impose unilateral changes to federal election procedures.” This one is likely to fare no better before the courts.
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The basic idea of the actual EO that the President issued on Tuesday is this: DHS is going to craft a list of citizens above the age of 18. States will get that list. If a state does not submit a list (presumably to be compared to the federal list [UPDATE: See here on the relationship between state and federal lists]), and give the post office the citizen-approved list of voters (and do other things like add bar codes to mailed ballots), USPS will not deliver the mail. (USPS would have to craft regulations to implement this.)
To put this in plain terms: the order would use the USPS, which is not under the direct control of the President, to interfere with a state’s lawful transmission of ballots. If the state does not comply with these rules, federal law would purport to interfere with a state’s conduct of its own elections.
The President does not have the authority to do this. He cites to two federal voting statutes and the part of the Constitution that says that the United States shall guarantee to each state a Republican form of government. These sources do not give him authority to force states to change their election rules.
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Finally, the timing here makes this virtually impossible to implement in time for November’s elections. This calls for rulemaking and DHS compiling these lists. These will take time. There will be inaccuracies or worse, and there will be lawsuits, many lawsuits. It seems highly unlikely any of this could be implemented for 2026, even if it were not blocked by courts.
It raises the question if this is just more election denialism theater. That’s what it looks like, rather than a serious effort to craft a law that could be implemented and withstand constitutional scrutiny.
