President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order that the White House says is geared toward cracking down on mail-in voting.
“It’s about voter integrity, we want to have honest voting in our country because if you don’t have honest voting, you can’t have really a nation,” Trump stated after signing the order within the Oval Office.
It’s not clear what authority Trump is relying on to perform the order — on condition that states, not the president, have broad authority to run elections. Trump has repeatedly and baselessly argued that US elections are rife with fraud and has sought to require proof of citizenship to vote.
Trump acknowledged the order might be legally challenged by a “rouge” federal choose, however he added, “I don’t see how anybody can challenge it.”
Experts notice that noncitizen voting in federal elections already is against the law and is exceedingly uncommon. Foreigners who forged ballots in presidential or congressional elections danger prosecution and deportation if caught.
White House aide Will Sharf stated Tuesday that the order will use federal information to confirm eligible voters and direct the United States Postal Service to take new measures to confirm that mail-in ballots are being despatched to eligible voters and correctly returned.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick stated states might be required to obtain a bar code from the USPS that might be positioned on mail-in poll envelopes.
“The states run these elections — if they want to use the US mail, the US Postal Service, they’re going to get a code, a bar code, from the US Postal Service and they’re going to put that on the envelope and we’re going to have one envelope per vote,” Lutnick stated, standing behind Trump within the Oval Office.
In current weeks, the president has demanded that Congress cross a proof-of-citizenship requirement and different modifications to election legislation as a part of a invoice dubbed the “Save America Act,” however it has failed to achieve traction within the Senate.
Trump, who has declared voting by mail dishonest, defended his personal vote by mail in a current Florida particular election, saying,“Because of the fact that I’m President of the United States.”
This is a creating story and might be up to date.