President Donald Trump issued an executive order (EO) on Tuesday that aims to make sweeping changes to U.S. elections, and warns that states will lose Federal election grants if they do not comply with new requirements.
The order includes several changes to elections, ranging from requiring people to prove their citizenship when they register to vote, to changing mail-in ballot deadlines. The order drew fast push-back from states and other parties because, in large part, running elections has long been governed by state and local authorities.
Notably, the EO says that when considering funding for state or local election offices or administrators, the Federal government will “heavily prioritize compliance” with new guidelines to be developed by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC).
The order tasks the EAC – which is an independent government agency created by Congress in 2002 – with revising the voluntary voting system guidelines used by states. This would include guidance that voting machines should not rely on ballots that use barcodes or QR codes in the vote counting process.
President Trump instructed the commission to “take appropriate action to review and, if appropriate, re-certify voting systems” under those new guidelines within six months of the executive order.
“Non-compliant states may face prioritized Federal enforcement of election integrity laws and loss of funding given their unwillingness to police fraud,” a White House fact sheet on the EO says, adding, “Federal election funding will be conditioned on compliance.”
However, several states and election experts voiced their opposition to the order and expect it to be met by legal challenges.
For example, California Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber called the executive order “a calculated and dramatic assault on every American’s right to vote.”
“Under the guise of protecting Americans from voter fraud, this unprecedented and reckless interference into state election processes is premised on a widely debunked myth of massive non-citizen voting. Make no mistake, President Trump, through this action, shows that he fears voters and America’s longstanding principles of democracy,” Weber said in a statement.
“As California Secretary of State, I will do all in my power to ensure that all eligible Californians can freely and securely participate in our democracy,” she added.
“It is more of a malevolent press release than a real government action,” Michael Waldman, the president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law, said of the new executive order. “The president does not have unilateral power to rewrite the election laws of the United States.”