President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order Tuesday targeting mail-in voting and escalating his long-running effort to restrict voting access ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
“Cheating on mail-in voting is legendary. It’s horrible,” Trump said while signing the order. “Democrats want to use it for cheating.”
Election experts immediately said the order would be rejected by the courts. One told Democracy Docket it’s “unconstitutional on its face.”
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Still, the order marks the most aggressive federal action yet in Trump’s campaign against mail-in voting, which he has repeatedly attacked with false claims of widespread fraud.
Despite those claims, election officials across the country — including Republicans — have consistently found mail-in voting to be secure and reliable. Trump himself has voted by mail in recent elections.
The order directs the Department of Homeland Security to work with the Social Security Administration to create lists of verified U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state. It also instructs the U.S. Postal Service to only send absentee ballots to voters on approved lists and mandates the use of secure ballot envelopes with unique barcodes for tracking.
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