[VT Washington, D.C. ] March 25, 2025 – The President Trump of the United States signed a sweeping Executive Order titled “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections”, aimed at enforcing uniform election safeguards, verifying voter citizenship, and enhancing security across all federal election processes.
The Executive Order addresses a range of election system vulnerabilities and asserts that the United States lags behind other nations such as Germany, India, and Canada in ensuring election transparency and voter verification. Citing concerns over mail-in ballots, electronic voting systems, and non-citizen registrations, the order outlines a set of federal mandates designed to restore public trust and uphold constitutional governance.
Key directives of the Executive Order include:
- Mandating the Election Assistance Commission to revise the national mail voter registration form to require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship, such as a passport, REAL ID-compliant ID, or military identification;
- Directing the Department of Homeland Security to provide state election officials access to federal immigration and citizenship databases at no cost, to verify registrants’ legal status;
- Prioritizing Department of Justice enforcement of federal laws that prohibit foreign nationals from registering or voting in elections, and initiating prosecutions in cases of illegal registration or election fraud;
- Enforcing 2 U.S.C. §7 and 3 U.S.C. §1 to ensure that only ballots received by the legal Election Day deadline are counted in federal elections;
- Restricting the use of voting machines that count ballots using barcodes or QR codes and requiring systems to produce a voter-verifiable paper record;
- Terminating the implementation of Executive Order 14019 (Promoting Access to Voting), which had previously expanded federal agency involvement in voter registration outreach.
The Executive Order also empowers federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, the Social Security Administration, and the Department of Homeland Security, to assist states in confirming voter eligibility using available databases, while maintaining privacy and data protection standards.
To address cybersecurity risks, the Department of Homeland Security and the Election Assistance Commission are instructed to audit the digital infrastructure used in voter registration and ballot tabulation, particularly those integrated with the internet.
Failure by states to comply with these federal mandates may result in withheld funding, rescinded certifications of voting systems, and increased legal scrutiny from the Department of Justice.
This Executive Order took effect immediately upon issuance and is expected to significantly reshape federal and state cooperation in election administration and enforcement.
