Trump’s anti-voting order will mean chaos for mail voters if left to stand, experts warn

President Donald Trump’s new executive order on elections would tie up millions of everyday Americans who vote by mail in tangles of red tape, experts in election administration said. 

And that’s assuming government officials could even implement it in time for the upcoming midterm elections.

The order, issued late Tuesday afternoon, will be swiftly challenged in court and likely blocked as unconstitutional, because the Constitution gives states and Congress power to regulate elections, not the president. But if courts were to allow implementation during the legal challenge, experts say it would wreak havoc this fall on mail voters, who totaled over 48 million in 2024. 

Trump’s first executive order, issued in March 2025, attempted to unilaterally impose documentary proof of citizenship requirements and ban grace periods for counting late-arriving mail-in ballots. That was quickly halted by the courts last year before they issued permanent injunctions.

“Secretaries of State and other election administrators are busy running our democracy and calling balls and strikes, and the president is trying to change the rules in the middle of the game because he’s worried he might lose,” Cisco Aguilar, Nevada’s secretary of state and chair of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, said in a press release. 

The order directs the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to send each state a list of every citizen eligible to vote who “maintain[s] a residence in the subject [s]tate,” which would be pieced together from various federal databases, including some unnamed “relevant” sources. Presumably based on that list — the order doesn’t explicitly say — the states would then send the United States Postal Service (USPS) another list of people allowed to use mail-in ballots. The USPS would then be barred from delivering ballots sent by anyone not on that list.

Implementing Trump’s diktat ahead of the November midterms is simply “not feasible,” said Pamela Smith, president and CEO of Verified Voting. 

“The order itself is so convoluted,” Smith added. “That’s not up to the Postal Service. You can’t make them the gatekeepers for ballot delivery. That’s not somehow refining an existing practice to make it better, or whatever — that just doesn’t work.”

“The timing here makes this virtually impossible to implement in time for November’s elections,” University of California Los Angeles law professor Rick Hasen wrote on the Election Law Blog. “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.”

The executive order isn’t a serious attempt to make policy, Hasen added in a separate article for Slate. “Trump is engaging in election denialism theater. It makes voters of all sides mistrust the election process and the virtues of democracy.” Hasen wrote. “Trump’s executive order seems aimed to sow chaos in elections and depress turnout.”

The U.S. Supreme Court could add to the confusion. The court heard oral arguments last week in a case that could prevent states from accepting late-arriving ballots that were mailed by election day, putting hundreds of thousands of otherwise valid votes at risk.

The order’s strict and broad enforcement provisions also could deter efforts to encourage voting, Smith added.  

They direct the U.S. attorney general to “enforce compliance,” through investigation and potential prosecution of state and local officials, plus “any instrumentalities thereof; contractors; individuals involved in the administration of Federal elections; or public or private entities engaged in the printing, production, shipment, or distribution of ballots.”

Such broad potential liability for mistakes in the implementation of rushed regulations could lead to shortages in campaign workers and volunteers, who would be discouraged to risk federal prosecution over an errantly-mailed ballot. 

“That really is chilling,” said Smith, who added that states already do a thorough job of investigating and prosecuting election crimes. 

The order also directs the Social Security Administration (SSA) to bolster DHS’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program with its data. SSA has already been doing this since last spring, even though there’s considerable evidence that states and localities using SAVE to find noncitizens on their rolls are mistakenly flagging large numbers of eligible voters for removal.

The new deadlines could be exacerbated by foreseeable events like major storms. As West Carolina University political science professor Chris Cooper noted on X, Hurricane Helene landed just weeks before the 2024 election. 

“If this EO was law, Helene victims would have had no way to request a mail ballot after they were displaced,” Cooper wrote. 

Moreover, delays, gaps, and errors in federal records that were never intended to be used to determine state residency would undoubtedly lead to many voters being marked as residents of other states (e.g. if they recently moved) or noncitizens (if they naturalized). 

The order purports to direct the Postmaster General — who is appointed by and answers to the USPS board of governors, not the president — to propose a rule by June requiring that all mail ballots be sent in new, specific envelopes with bar codes. 

That’s all well and good, said Smith, but “the vast majority of states are already doing ballot tracking.” 

And the few that don’t, she added, say it’s a lack of resources preventing them from doing so. The executive order isn’t merely a rushed mandate, it would be an unfunded one, too. 

Moreover, while the executive order purports to establish “uniform standards” for mail-in ballot delivery, Smith noted that the order says a state “may choose to notify the USPS if it intends to allow for mail-in or absentee ballots to be transmitted by the USPS,” 90 days before an election. 

“They’re not required to notify USPS that they’re intending to transmit ballots,” Smith said. 

Assuming they did notify USPS 90 days in advance of an election, states would also need to provide USPS a list of voters 60 days prior to the election, who would be sent a mail-in ballot. USPS would then only be allowed to deliver ballots to individuals on that list. 

But that would preclude many would-be voters from using mail ballots if they register close to election day, Smith said. A state’s registration deadline — set by the federal National Voter Registration Act — can’t be further out than 30 days before an election. 

Moreover, the EO would cover all mail-in ballots, including excused absentee ballots. It would effectively prevent someone who falls sick just before election day — or otherwise can’t vote in person for a recognized reason — from requesting an absentee ballot.

The order directs USPS to issue a finalized rule “no later than 120 days” from its issuance, meaning it could be finalized as late as July 29, 2026. That would give states just two weekdays to send their mail-in ballot lists under the final rule by the deadline of 90 days before the 2026 midterms on August 4.

Even everyday events like moving to a new home could lead to disenfranchisement due to the added bureaucratic red tape the order would require. 

The order also orders DHS to establish procedures letting voters access their individual records to make corrections, and allow states to supplement or “provide suggested modifications or amendments” to the state citizenship lists. Just how that system would work, and how it could be stood up effectively before September — 60 days before the November elections — remains unclear. 

States and localities that refuse to comply would also face a loss of federal funding. If that were limited to just election administration grants under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), it wouldn’t mean much: Congress appropriated $45 million in election security grants for fiscal year 2026, and just $15 million in the prior year — a drop in the budgetary bucket, especially when split among many jurisdictions. 

But the order’s wording is vague, directing the “Attorney General and the heads of executive departments… with relevant authority” to “withhold[] Federal funds from noncomplaint States and localities where such withholding is authorized by law.” 

HAVA’s grants are administered by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, an independent agency, so this might be read Trump directing his cabinet to read other grant-making statutes as broadly as possible to authorize funding forfeiture. If attempted, such moves would presumably invite additional legal challenges.