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Last month, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to restrict the use of mail-in ballots. Under the guise of limiting voting to U.S. citizens (which is already the law), the order would set up an unworkable system requiring the U.S. Postal Service to monitor the delivery of ballots.
Legal experts agree the order is invalid and it should not change the procedures and standards that will be used in this year’s elections.
The U.S. Constitution gives states the power to run elections. It gives Congress, not the president, the power to make and change federal laws regarding elections.
That’s why a federal court last year rejected an executive order from the president that sought to require voters to show identification at polling places.
“Because our Constitution assigns responsibility for election regulation to the states and to Congress, this court holds that the president lacks the authority to direct such changes,” the judge ruled.
Still, Trump keeps trying to unilaterally change election laws and procedures.
Trump’s latest decree does not change any existing election laws. That, however, does not mean it is not damaging. It is part of his broader effort to undermine trust in American elections so he can build support for his objections to election results he does not like.
Mainers should not buy into this fear.
In Maine, the upcoming June primary election will proceed as usual. Requests for absentee ballots for the June 9 primary election opened last week. The ballots will be available next month. As in years past, those ballots will be sent by mail and can be returned by mail (or to a ballot drop box or in person to your town office).
“We’re not obeying an unlawful order from the president. Not in June and not in November,” Secretary of State Shenna Bellows told the BDN editorial board.
Legal experts agree that Trump’s order does not change the validity of absentee and mail-in voting. However, Maine has joined 22 other states, and Washington, D.C., in filing a lawsuit to ensure the executive order is not implemented. The states argue “the president has no authority to restrict voter eligibility or mail voting to lists of voters pre-authorized by the federal government. Plaintiff states bring this action to safeguard their constitutional authority to administer state and federal elections.”
The states are also challenging the order’s creation of a citizenship database that the Trump administration says it wants to use to determine who is eligible to receive an absentee ballot.
It is worth remembering that instances of non-citizens voting are extremely rare. According to a database compiled by the Heritage Foundation, there have been 71 cases of ineligible non-citizens convicted of voting in U.S. elections since 1982. While no ineligible voters should be allowed to cast ballots, this is a vanishingly tiny percentage — a fraction of a thousandth of a percent — of the billions on ballots that were cast in those 44 years. The conservative Cato Institute, has also long debunked myths about non-citizen voting, which is already illegal, thereby exposing a non-citizen to a severe penalty for trying to cast a ballot.
A court ruling invalidating the March 31 executive order will ensure that mail-in ballots remain valid, and counted, across the country
Despite Trump’s bashing of mail-in voting and his efforts to stop it, he has frequently voted by mail, most recently in March in a special election to fill a Florida House seat in his district. Although the president and White House officials say he votes by mail because he is busy, an investigation by Politico found that Trump requested and cast his ballot in the March 24 election from his home in Palm Beach.
If mail-in voting is convenient and valid for the president, it is convenient and valid for all Americans. An unconstitutional executive order can’t change that.
