President Trump issued Executive Order "Ensuring Citizen Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections," directing federal agencies to compile lists of US citizens and transmit them to states before every election, directing the US Postal Service to create a list of "approved" mail voters, and instructing USPS to refuse to deliver ballots from voters not on the federally created list. Constitutional scholars and election law experts said the president lacks authority to unilaterally impose changes to federal election procedures without an act of Congress.
The order represents the fulfillment of Trump's August 2025 pledge -- made after meeting with Putin -- to restrict mail-in voting by executive action. By weaponizing the Postal Service as a gatekeeping mechanism for ballot delivery, the order attempts to shift election administration authority from states and Congress to the executive branch. Five states -- Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Hawaii, and Utah -- conduct all elections entirely by mail, and approximately 46% of voters nationwide cast ballots by mail in the 2024 election. The ACLU, NAACP, Common Cause, and Black Voters Matter Fund condemned the order as unlawful and warned it would disproportionately disenfranchise Black voters, elderly voters, rural voters, and voters with disabilities.