File photo: US President Donald Trump (Picture credit: AP)
US President Donald Trump announced plans on late Saturday to issue an executive order that would make voter identification mandatory and restrict mail-in voting.“Voter ID must be part of every single vote. No exceptions! I will be doing an executive order to that end!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. He added, “Also, No Mail-In Voting, except for those that are very ill, and the far away military. Use paper ballots only!!!”. The post builds on Trump’s repeated pledges to overhaul US voting systems. A few days ago, he said the order was being prepared “by the best lawyers in the country” to eliminate mail-in ballots, reported The New York Times. Trump argued that Republicans needed to “get tough and stop it” because, in his view, Democrats benefited disproportionately from the practice.Mail-in and absentee voting accounted for just over 30 per cent of ballots in the 2024 elections, according to news agency AFP. Although Trump and his allies have repeatedly claimed the system is open to fraud, experts and officials have stressed there is no evidence postal voting is less secure than in-person voting. Pro-democracy groups have also warned that scrapping it could disenfranchise millions of Americans, particularly those with disabilities or other barriers to reaching polling places. Constitutionally, the president does not have the authority to unilaterally change election rules. The power to regulate the “times, places and manner” of elections lies with state legislatures, and only Congress can override those laws. As The New York Times noted, any executive order targeting mail-in ballots or voting procedures would face immediate legal challenges.Trump has previously relied on absentee voting himself, including during Florida’s 2020 primaries. His critics argue the push to end mail-in voting is politically motivated, pointing out that Democrats have historically outnumbered Republicans in using postal ballots.
