NEW YORK, August 24, 2026– Trump’s administration is moving toward a comprehensive reform of the American electoral system through a requirement that voters provide documentation of their citizenship to be able to enrol in elections to Federal positions, while at the same time courts are blocking the implementation of key provisions of previous executive orders issued for this purpose.
This is happening against the backdrop of efforts made by the White House and like-minded legislators in favor of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, which will include an amendment to the National Voter Registration Act, requiring States not to accept applications of people who wish to register as voters if they do not have documents confirming their citizenship.
Concurrently, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14399 in March titled “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections,” requiring the Department of Homeland Security, in coordination with the Social Security Administration, to make a list of confirmed citizens of each state for the determination of voter eligibility. A federal appeals court subsequently refused to give permission to the administration to execute its mail-in voting directive in 23 states, and judges also barred an executive order previously issued by the administration demanding proof of citizenship to be registered and to have mail ballots counted.
The administration has tried to defend the policy through a DHS report that shows up to 278,000 noncitizens registered to vote in federal elections in multiple states, a figure mentioned by President Trump in his primetime speech. Election specialists and some officials have rejected the statistics and believe that the methodology is vague, with the figure being an exaggeration. The problem of noncitizen voting is not prevalent at all.
Critics of the reform claim that it would give the executive branch control over the election process and place restrictions on registration, especially those relating to naturalized citizens and individuals without ready access to certain forms of documentation. In the past, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission refused to modify the national voter registration form and include citizenship proof. Consequently, the commission’s members were fired from the White House.
Official executive directives and updates on federal election administration policies can also be tracked directly via the White House Executive Orders Portal.
