Trump Tries Another Blatantly Unconstitutional Midterm-Rigging Scheme

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Declaring that he doesn’t know “how it can be challenged,” Donald Trump on Tuesday signed a patently illegal executive order meant to rig the midterms in the GOP’s favor by curbing the right to vote by mail.

“It’s foolproof,” the president added.

It is certainly fool-something, and we imagine that the president, who is hardly a constitutional scholar, will find out very quickly on which grounds it can be contested, as multiple pro-democracy groups are already preparing to sue.

“Our coalition defeated President Trump’s last illegal anti-voter executive order in court, and we will defeat this unlawful and incoherent one, too. We are drafting the lawsuit right now,” said Danielle Lang, the vice president of voting rights and the rule of law at Campaign Legal Center, Norm Eisen of the Democracy Defenders Fund, and Juan Proaño of the League of United Latin American Citizens in a joint statement. “The Constitution gives authority over elections to the states and Congress. The president does not have the power he is claiming. We will see him in court.”

They’ll have to get in line.

“This is a massive and unconstitutional voter suppression effort aimed at giving Trump the power to create a list of who is allowed to vote by mail,” said election lawyer Marc Elias. “We know where this will go – the targeting of Democrats for mass disenfranchisement. We will sue and we will win.”

What Trump envisions is that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), using data from various federal databases like that of the Social Security Administration, will create a “state citizenship list,” which will determine who can vote by mail.

According to the order, the United States Postal Service would only be allowed to send ballots to and from voters who are on that list.

The president, who has no constitutional authority over administering elections, also wants the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute election officials who provide federal ballots to ineligible voters.

While the primary purpose of the order is to suppress the votes of Americans who cast their ballots by mail, it also gave Trump an opportunity to once again rehash his lies about the 2020 election, which he lost decisively before trying to overturn the results.

“The cheating on mail-in ballots is legendary,” he said.

There is no evidence to support that claim, and Trump has never been able to substantiate any of his claims that the election was stolen from him.

Ultimately, it seems likely that, just like he did after his 2020 loss, the president will fail in court with his latest effort of rigging the midterms.

However, it is disconcerting that he keeps trying… and that it is now a tenet of the GOP’s catechism to claim that rampant cheating was to blame for Trump’s defeat by Joe Biden.

More than anything, this order highlights that US democracy is under attack from this administration and Republicans in general, and that Americans will have to take additional steps ahead of the midterms to ensure that their votes are counted.

It is already clear that the 2026 midterms will be unlike any other election with Donald Trump using all levers of the government to ensure that Republicans maintain control of Congress. This will include a massive voter suppression effort, as evidenced by the president’s efforts to get the GOP to change the rules of the Senate to pass the “SAVE America Act.”

Fortunately, every American has a vote. To ensure that yours is counted, go here to check your registration status. It only takes a few seconds.

Apart from that, we urge all Americans to get involved and make sure their family members and friends are registered as well. Democracy only works if everybody participates.