President Trump signs order asserting federal control over mail-in voting
President Donald Trump has moved to assert federal control over mail-in voting with an executive order.
California leaders are speaking out against President Donald Trump over his recent executive order imposing federal control over voter rolls and mail-in voting, further increasing the administration’s efforts to enact new voting restrictions for the 2026 midterm elections.
President Trump’s order, signed on March 31, requires the Department of Homeland Security, in conjunction with the Social Security Administration, to create a list of voting-age U.S. citizens residing in each state and communicate it to each state’s voting officials at least 60 days before an election.
The order directed the U.S. Postal Service to oversee mail-in voting, develop rules to establish “uniform standards” for ballots, and to ensure that ballots from unauthorized people are not sent.
“Donald Trump is using unconstitutional means to suppress voting and rig the midterm elections,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said on the X show earlier this week. “California will fight back to protect the integrity of our elections and the right of our citizens to vote.”
Voter groups and Democratic Party officials have since filed two lawsuits aimed at blocking President Trump’s executive order.
On April 1, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), along with Democratic groups, filed a lawsuit alleging that the voting changes “could disenfranchise lawful voters and clearly exceed the president’s lawful authority.” One of the groups targeted in the lawsuit is the Democratic Governors Association, of which Newsom is the policy chair.
The second lawsuit was filed on April 2nd.The ACLU, which represents voting rights organizations, and other civil rights groups argued that President Trump’s order would exclude “potentially millions of eligible American citizens” from voting.
The executive order faced immediate backlash from Democrats, states’ rights, and voting rights advocates. Under the Constitution, each state has the power to determine the “time, place, and manner” of federal elections. State and local governments administer voting, but the Constitution gives Congress the power to “make or alter” election rules.
“President Trump’s executive order marks a dangerous and unprecedented escalation in President Trump’s ongoing attack on our elections,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a post on X.
“The power to regulate elections lies with the states and Congress, and he has no role to play. We have blocked his previous executive orders regarding elections in court, and we are prepared to block him again.”
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber said President Trump has “zero constitutional authority over federal elections.”
“This action is clearly illegal, unconstitutional, and a desperate attempt to interfere and rig the election,” Weber said in a statement. “California won’t tolerate that.”
President Trump has criticized mail-in voting for years, particularly questioning the “security” of the voting method. In recent months, President Trump has suggested the federal government could nationalize the voting process.
“Fraud in mail-in voting is legendary,” President Trump said at a signing ceremony at the White House on March 31. “It’s scary what’s going on. … I think this will help the election a lot.”
Trump has falsely claimed in the past that he won the 2020 presidential election and said the president’s actions would help avoid future “stolen elections.”
How will President Trump’s vote-by-mail order affect California?
Matt Lesenier, a political science professor at California State University, Long Beach, questions whether Trump’s executive order will have an immediate impact on residents, with midterm elections just months away and likely to face a lengthy legal battle.
“It’s not just California that’s fighting back. A lot of states, including Republican states, are saying, ‘This is how we were elected, so why would we give up that power?'” Lesenier said.
Lesenier also noted that amid a potential legal battle, the U.S. Supreme Court likely won’t hear the case during this election cycle.
“The Supreme Court has said for at least a decade that we don’t want fraud in the shadow of elections,” Lesenier said. “Following the court’s own logic, this major shift in elections that could change on a national scale should not occur in an election year.”
If the courts were to uphold President Trump’s executive order, Lesenier believes it could have a significant impact on the more than 23 million registered voters across California, potentially “disenfranchising the people.” Specifically, Lesenier questioned the federal government’s efficiency in determining which voters’ ballots are valid, since ballots are processed through the U.S. Postal Service and checked by multiple federal agencies.
“I think the possibility of malign bureaucracy comes to mind,” he says. “If these voter records are not accurate about who is a citizen, this order suggests that the Postal Service will either prevent those ballots from being delivered to voters or keep them from being returned to (county) clerks.”
Weber said the state has seen a significant increase in the use of mail-in voting since 2020, with “more than 80% of voters in California alone voting by mail in the 2024 election.”
Specifically, of the more than 16 million Californians who voted in the 2024 general election, approximately 13 million voted by mail-in ballot.
Even before 2020, voting by mail was considered a popular voting method, with more than 50% of voters sending their ballots by mail, according to data from the California Secretary of State.
contribution: Zach Anderson and Aisha Bagchi, USA TODAY
Noe Padilla is a Northern California reporter for USA Today. To contact him, npadilla@usatodayco.comX Follow him at @1NoePadilla or Bluesky @noepadilla.bsky.social..
