Trump Signs Executive Order Mandating Citizenship Proof for Federal Elections

WASHINGTON, 26 March 2025 (BSS/AFP) – US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order tightening federal election rules, including a requirement for proof of citizenship when registering to vote. The move comes as Trump continues to claim, without evidence, that the electoral system remains biased against him.

The order, signed at the White House on Tuesday, mandates that individuals present official documents—such as a passport or birth certificate—when registering to vote in their state of residence. States that fail to enforce these measures could face reductions in federal election funding.

Trump, who secured a second term in office last November, reiterated his longstanding allegations of electoral fraud, despite a lack of substantiated evidence.

“Perhaps some people think I shouldn’t be complaining, because we won in a landslide,” he said during the signing ceremony. “But we’ve got to straighten out our election. This country is so sick because of the election, the fake elections. And we’re going to straighten it out, one way or the other.”

Legal and Political Backlash

The executive order has been met with fierce opposition from legal experts, civil rights organisations, and state officials, who argue that it is an unconstitutional overreach of presidential authority and could disenfranchise millions of voters.

Professor Richard Hasen, a legal scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles, described the order as “dangerous,” warning that it could undermine access to the ballot box.

“This is an executive power grab that directly challenges the authority of states over their own electoral processes,” Hasen wrote on his Election Law blog.

The Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan public policy institute, strongly condemned the order, stating that it “would block tens of millions of American citizens from voting. Presidents have no authority to do this.”

Similarly, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) labelled the directive “an extreme abuse of power,” vowing to challenge it in court. “We’ll see him in court,” the organisation declared.

Implications for Absentee Voting

The order also grants the US Attorney General authority to take legal action against states that include absentee or mail-in ballots received after Election Day in their final vote counts. Several states currently allow late-arriving ballots to be counted, provided they were postmarked before polling stations closed.

Trump has been a long-standing critic of absentee voting, which surged in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. He has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that mail-in ballots are a major source of electoral fraud.

A Longstanding Political Battle

The debate over voting rights and election integrity has been a deeply polarising issue in American politics. While Republican lawmakers often argue for stricter voting regulations to prevent fraud, Democrats and civil rights advocates see such measures as attempts to suppress voter turnout, particularly among marginalised communities.

Importantly, voting by non-citizens in US federal elections has been illegal for decades, with offenders facing fines, imprisonment, and deportation. Critics of Trump’s executive order argue that it is a solution to a problem that does not exist on a significant scale.

As legal challenges loom, the latest move by the Trump administration is likely to intensify the already heated debate over voting rights in the United States.