Trump Issues an Unconstitutional Executive Order Asserting Control over Voting Lists and Mail-In Ballots

Donald Trump is desperate to disrupt this year’s midterm congressional elections, which are almost certain to wipe out his party’s majority in Congress and lead to increased congressional resistance to his agenda. He has already attempted once to exert direct presidential control over the election process, and now he’s making another try.

A British newspaper, The Guardian, is somehow far more forthright about how this contradicts the U.S. Constitution than most American outlets:

Donald Trump signed an executive order directing his administration to compile a national voter file and to restrict the use of mail-in ballots, an unprecedented move that is probably unconstitutional.

The executive order directs the Department of Homeland Security to work with the Social Security Administration to compile a list of verified US citizens who can vote in every state. It also directs the United States Postal Service (USPS) to begin rule-making on a process that would require states to notify the agency of voters who intend to receive a mail-in ballot and prohibit them from receiving one unless they are on a USPS-approved list of eligible voters.

Trump repeated a series of falsehoods about voting before signing the order in the Oval Office on Tuesday. …

“There’s not a single provision in here that will withstand judicial review. This is a wholly unconstitutional EO,” said David Becker, the executive director for the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a non-profit.

The US constitution gives the president no authority over elections and expressly authorizes states to set election rules.

The Constitution’s dispersal of voting administration to the states is intended to prevent exactly what Trump is trying to do. But the goal of this executive order is not just to get away with a presidential takeover of the process. It is also laying the groundwork to challenge the legitimacy of any vote that doesn’t follow Trump’s rules—and to try to overturn it.

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

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