Updated March 31, 2026 at 5:43 PM MDT
President Trump has escalated his efforts to reshape American elections, signing an executive order that seeks to create lists of U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote in each state, and instructs the U.S. Postal Service to play a larger role in states' mail voting programs.
Trump said in the Oval Office Tuesday that he believes the order is "foolproof" and may or may not be tested in court. But election experts said the order was unconstitutional and prominent voting rights attorneys quickly threatened to sue to block the order from going into effect.
A previous executive order on elections, signed about a year ago, has been blocked by federal judges who said the president lacked the constitutional authority to set voting policy.
The Constitution says the "Times, Places and Manner" of federal elections are determined by individual states, with Congress able to enact changes.
Trump has long railed — baselessly — about widespread illegal voting by noncitizens and fraud with mail ballots. The new executive order — which was first reported by The Daily Caller — takes aim at both.
The order instructs the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to "compile and transmit to the chief election official of each State a list of individuals confirmed to be United States citizens who will be above the age of 18 at the time of an upcoming Federal election and who maintain a residence in the subject State."
The executive order comes as Trump's Justice Department is seeking sensitive voter data from states, and is engaged in more than two dozen lawsuits for that data. The administration claims it needs the data to enforce states' voter list maintenance. Federal judges in three states have dismissed the Justice Department's lawsuits in those states.
In another case, a DOJ official admitted in court last week that the department plans to share that data with the Department of Homeland Security, to run it through the so-called SAVE system to search for noncitizens.
NPR has reported that some U.S. citizens have also been inaccurately flagged by SAVE.
Trump's order also targets mail voting, claiming that "additional measures are necessary" to secure voting by mail – a form of voting he has used himself but has also maligned for years. In the 2024 general election, nearly a third of voters cast mail ballots.
The order says that a state's mail voters should be cleared by federal officials and that all mail ballots be tracked by USPS. Envelopes must also be reviewed by the Postal Service.
"Unique ballot envelope identifiers, such as bar codes, enable confirmation that only citizens receive and cast ballots, reducing the risk of fraud and protecting the integrity of Federal elections," the order says.
This would be a significant change to how mail-in ballot programs are currently administered in American elections, which are largely carried out by state and local officials.
The Brennan Center for Justice, which advocates for expanded voting access and sued to block Trump's last elections order, said in a statement that the president "has no lawful authority to write the rules that govern our elections."
"Our government's citizenship lists are incomplete and inaccurate," the group said on X. "The United States Postal Service is overburdened and inadequate. This combines a car crash with a train wreck."
And the order also comes as Trump pressures Republicans in Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, a sweeping election overhaul that would impose new voter identification and documentation requirements.
That bill is stalled in the Senate due to Democratic opposition and the legislative filibuster.
The Supreme Court is also expected to rule this year on whether Mississippi should be allowed to count mail ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but received by election officials after Election Day. The legal challenge, which could have more sweeping implications for mail-in voting nationwide, was filed by the Republican National Committee and Trump's 2024 presidential campaign.
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