It is no surprise that President Donald J. Trump believes the U.S. voting system is broken. Since his loss to Joe Biden in 2020, Trump has railed against fraud in elections, including allegations of voting by non-citizens and improperly counted votes received by mail after Election Day. On March 25, 2025, Trump signed Executive Order 14248, Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections, to address these concerns. The EO seeks “[f ]ree, fair, and honest elections unmarred by fraud, errors, or suspicion” and to ensure “[t]he right of American citizens to have their votes properly counted and tabulated, without illegal dilution.”1 The EO contains several notable provisions. 

To enforce the “prohibition on foreign nationals voting in Federal elections,” the EO directs the Election Assistance Commission (EAC)—a bipartisan, independent agency—to mandate that “its national mail voter registration form” require “documentary proof of United States citizenship, consistent with 52 U.S.C. 20508(b) (3).”2 It also directs key executive agencies to help State officials “identify unqualified voters registered in the States” by providing access to critical federal databases; to “review each State’s publicly available voter registration list and available records concerning voter list maintenance activities as required by 52 U.S.C. 20507;” and to “prioritize enforcement of 18 U.S.C. 611 and 1015(f ) and similar laws that restrict non-citizens from registering to vote or voting.”3 

The EO further directs the Attorney General to facilitate the prosecution of federal election crimes; to “prevent all non-citizens from being involved in the administration of any Federal election;” and to take action if States “fail to comply with the list maintenance requirements of … 52 U.S.C. 20507 and 52 U.S.C. 21083.”4 In addition, it directs the EAC, “pursuant to 52 U.S.C. 21003(b)(3) and 21142(c),” to “cease providing Federal funds to States that do not comply with” various election laws, including the EO’s mandate to require documentary proof of citizenship; to “amend the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines,” providing that systems “should not use a ballot in which a vote is contained within a barcode or quick-response code” except to accommodate the disabled; and to “review and, if appropriate, re-certify voting systems under the new standards.”5 

Finally, the EO seeks to “enforce 2 U.S.C. 7 and 3 U.S.C. 1”—the “laws that set the uniform day for appointing Presidential electors and electing members of Congress”—by preventing States from “including absentee or mail-in ballots received after Election Day in the final tabulation of votes.”6 To assist in this effort, the EO directs the EAC to “condition” its election funds on States adopting this uniform standard.7 

With Trump critics alleging that his new EO would “disenfranchise” millions of vulnerable voters, nineteen Democrat-led States and some voting activist groups quickly sued Trump in four consolidated lawsuits, calling his EO an overreach of power. 

The President has … no authority to regulate elections at all: The Constitution’s Elections Clause vests Congress and the States—not the President—with authority to set rules for federal elections. Congress in turn entrusted the job of maintaining the national mail-in voter registration form … to the EAC, an independent, bipartisan agency insulated from executive control.8 

In contrast, to codify some of the more-controversial provisions of Trump’s EO, Republicans in the House of Representatives passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act on April 10, although the bill’s fate remains doubtful in the Senate.

In truth, as seen in the excerpts above, much of Trump’s EO is a straightforward direction to executive agency heads to enforce existing laws—nothing unusual there. For that reason, regardless of these lawsuits, the majority of the EO should remain intact. The most impactful parts of the EO, however—those requiring proof of citizenship to vote and rejecting mail-in ballots after Election Day—are unlikely to survive without further guidance by the U.S. Supreme Court. These new requirements have been highly disputed for decades, with both Congressional and EAC efforts to adopt them falling short time and again. In the end, Trump might not be able to impose them through presidential fiat.

At the core of the constitutional dispute in these cases is an issue in the crosshairs of some conservative Supreme Court Justices: the propriety of congressional delegations of law enforcement power to independent agencies outside the control of the President. Some conservative scholars believe that these delegations violate the Separation of Powers, with Trump partly blaming them for a “deep state” controlled by unaccountable bureaucrats. Trump has been on a mission to take back that power for the President.

Despite voiced concerns by some conservative Justices in recent years, the Supreme Court has long permitted delegations of congressional power to “multimember expert [independent] agencies that do not wield substantial executive power.”9 Thus, Trump’s EO may be in jeopardy under current case law. For the EO to prevail in directing the EAC to take certain actions, the Supreme Court likely would need to upend case law in existence since the 1930s, or else find that the EAC’s power over elections is the kind of authority that should only be wielded by executive branch officials answerable to the President of the United States.

Neither one of these possibilities is out of the question with the current 6-3 conservative make-up of the Court, with three of the Justices appointed by Trump himself. The Supreme Court might very well conclude that Trump’s EO is merely enforcing the laws in a way the President can. Still, a “save” by Congress in passing the SAVE Act, would be the most enduring way for these requirements to take effect. 

References:

1 EO 14248, Sec. 1.

2 Id. at Sec. 2(a).

3 Id. at Sec. 2(b)-(f), Sec. 3(a).

4 Id. at Sec. 5, Sec. 6(a), and Sec. 3(c).

5 Id. at Sec. 4(a)-(b).

6 Id. at Sec. 7(a).

7 Id. at Sec. 7(b).

8 Democratic National Committee, et al. v. Trump, Case Nos. 25-0946, 25-0952, 25-0955, Apr. 7, 2025 (Memorandum in Support of League and Lulac Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction at p. 1). 

9 Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Fin. Protection Bureau, 591 U.S. 197, 218 (2020) (citing Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602, 619–20, 624 (1935)).