President Donald Trump signed an executive order supporting election integrity and demanding stricter registration measures.
The order, called “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections,” says the United States “fails to enforce basic and necessary election protections employed by modern, developed nations, as well as those still developing.”
“Under the Constitution, State governments must safeguard American elections in compliance with Federal laws that protect Americans’ voting rights and guard against dilution by illegal voting, discrimination, fraud, and other forms of malfeasance and error,” the order reads. “Yet the United States has not adequately enforced Federal election requirements that, for example, prohibit States from counting ballots received after Election Day or prohibit non-citizens from registering to vote.”
The order asserts that it is the policy of the Trump administration to “enforce Federal law and to protect the integrity of our election process.”
According to a White House fact sheet, the order:
- Bans foreign citizens from interfering in U.S. elections by requiring government-issued proof of U.S. citizenship on voter registration forms
- Directs the Attorney General to take action against states counting ballots received after Election Day in federal elections
- Requires voter-verifiable paper ballot record and “not using ballots in which the counted vote is contained within a barcode or QR code”
“We’re going to fix our elections so that our elections are going to be honorable and honest and people leave and they know their vote is counted. We are going to have free and fair elections. And ideally, we go to paper ballots, same-day voting, proof of citizenship, very big, and voter ID, very simple,” Trump said, as quoted in the fact sheet. “We will secure our elections, and they will be secure once and for all.”
