Maybe I’m naïve, but I don’t think thousands of illegal immigrants vote in the United States.

Maybe I’m naïve, but I don’t think thousands of dead people vote twice in every election.

As the Republicans get increasingly nervous about their loss of control over the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives if Democrats and Independents turn out to vote in the November mid-term elections, Trump issued an Executive Order to try to plant more doubt in American’s minds about the integrity of our elections.

Trump and his supporters do more than hint that he should run for a third term in 2028. (Oh, why not? Just because that is prohibited by the U.S. Constitution and just because in November 2028 he will be 82 years old?)

On March 31, 2026, he issued an Executive Order that puts onerous responsibilities on certain parts of our government regarding mail-in voting and introduces a whole new national database. It’s more than a bit Orwellian.

The irony is that Donald Trump usually mails in his ballot. He says there is a lot of fraud in the practice.

A little history

Trump was shocked to learn in 2020 that in many states mail-in ballots are not tabulated until election night. This can result in an election that looks like it is going in favor of one candidate an hour after the polls close going in favor of the other candidate by the end of the night. He was appalled and called it corruption.

In some states, mail-in ballots are counted as long as they are postmarked by the date of the election. Trump doesn’t like that. He wants all 160 million+ votes in the nation to be tabulated instantaneously.

He has famously accused Fulton County, Georgia poll workers of cheating, and in the process has ruined peoples’ lives. All that because he didn’t have a clue that ballots are put into containers for safekeeping.

He famously called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and asked him to “find” him 11,780 votes on January 2, 2021. I can’t think of anything more corrupt than that in an election. Thank you, Mr. Raffensperger for not caving into the pressure of a sitting U.S. President!

And yet… even though every American has heard the recording of that phone call, 81 million of them voted for Trump to be their President again in 2024.

Trump thought he was going to beat Joe Biden in the 2020 election, and it angered him when Biden defeated him. He quickly blamed voter fraud and mail-in voting. The irony is that many Republicans won their races in that election; however, somehow it was only Donald Trump who got cheated. How can that be?

The Executive Order titled “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections” was issued by the President on March 31, 2026. It was met with opposition, but on Thursday, May 28, 2026, a federal judge declined to block it.

Although states hold the authority and responsibility to run elections and that trickles down to local election boards, this judge essentially ruled that the U.S. President has the right to tighten rules governing elections and necessitate new expenses and work for state and local governments.

The wording of Executive Order: “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections”

I was going to quote the entire Order, but it is 1,770 words long. If you want to read it in its entirety, it can be found on the White House website at https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/ensuring-citizenship-verification-and-integrity-in-federal-elections/.

Excerpts:

“Sec. 2. Establishment and Transmission of State Citizenship Lists and Prioritization of Investigations and Prosecutions Related to Election Fraud. (a) To the extent feasible and consistent with applicable law, including but not limited to the Privacy Act of 1974 (5 U.S.C. 552a), the Secretary of Homeland Security, through the Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services and in coordination with the Commissioners of SSA, shall take appropriate action to compile and transmit to the chief election official of each State a list of individuals confirmed to be United States citizens who will be above the age of 18 at the time of an upcoming Federal election and who maintain a residence in the subject State (State Citizenship List). The State Citizenship List shall be derived from Federal citizenship and naturalization records, SSA records, SAVE data, and other relevant Federal databases. The State Citizenship List shall be updated and transmitted to State election officials no fewer than 60 days before each regularly scheduled Federal election or promptly upon request by a State in connection with any special Federal election.”

“Sec. 3. United States Postal Service Rulemaking on Mail-In and Absentee Ballots” goes into great detail about the envelopes to be used.

“Sec. 4. Implementation.” spells out the responsibilities of the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration relating to this Executive Order. The Secretary of Homeland Security, for instance, “shall,within 90 days of the date of this order, establish the infrastructure necessary to compile, maintain, and transmit the State Citizenship List described in section 2(a) of this order and shall designate a point of contact within DHS to receive and process requests from individuals and State election officials regarding the relevant State Citizenship List. The Commissioners of SSA shall provide all necessary citizenship and identity data to the Secretary of Homeland Security in support of this requirement, consistent with applicable law, the Privacy Act, and all applicable use agreements.”

“Sec. 5. Enforcement.” spells out how “the Attorney General and the heads of executive departments and agencies (agencies) with relevant authority shall take all lawful steps to deter and address noncompliance… including withholding Federal funds from noncompliant States and localities…. States or localities, including any instrumentalities thereof; contractors; individuals involved in the administration of Federal elections; or public or private entities engaged in the printing, production, shipment, or distribution of ballots may be referred to the Department of Justice for consideration of investigation or charges…. States and localities should preserve, for a 5-year period, all records and materials – excluding ballots cast – evidencing voter participation in any Federal election (e.g., ballot envelops, regardless of carrier).”

“Sec. 6. Severability.” says if any part of this order “is held to be invalid,” that won’t have any bearing on the rest of the order.

“Sec. 7. General Provisions.” addresses functions of the government that will not “be construed to” be impaired or otherwise affected by this Order.

What the opposition says

The arguments against the Executive Order maintained using the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to build “state citizenship lists” risks preventing some citizens from voting as data sources can contain errors and be out of date.

More worrisome is that at the direction of one person, individual states’ rights to regulate elections are being infringed upon. After all, according to the U.S. Constitution, states regulate elections.

The judge was asked to issue a preliminary injunction to block the Executive Order. It was reported that he seemed sympathetic to arguments against the Order on May 14; however, last Thursday he ruled that the Executive Order can go forward.

My take

Considering all the layers of data gathering, the detailed rules the United States Postal Service must follow, and the mere fact that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is the lead agency in this, what could possibly go wrong?

All one must do is remember that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is part of Homeland Security’s operations.

Since March 31, Trump kicked Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to the curb and replaced her with former U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullin, so I don’t know what that does to the Homeland Security chief’s directive in Section 4 which has a June 29, 2026 deadline.

I hope the judge’s decision on May 28 will be appealed. I hope when the case goes to the U.S. Supreme Court, some common sense will prevail.

President Trump continues to claim that there was widespread organized voter fraud in the 2020 election. He still believes that he won that election, although it has been proven repeatedly that he lost. Nothing makes him angrier than to be known as a loser.

President Trump started saying the only way he could lose an election is if the opposition cheated. When he lost, he doubled down on his claims of voter fraud. He was never able to prove voter fraud in the courts.

Supporters of Trump like to claim that dead people voted in the 2020 election and, apparently, they all voted for Joe Biden.

What we have in the Executive Order highlighted in today’s blog post is another case of issuing a solution – a very cumbersome and expensive solution — for a problem that does not exist.

I’d rather see the overturning of the Citizens United U.S. Supreme Court decision to take big business and billionaire supporters from buying our elections.

I’d rather see AI-generated political campaign TV ads outlawed.

I’d rather see our government try to block the ability of China and Russia to flood the internet and social media with bogus claims about political candidates and political parties.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress continues to roll over and play dead. That institution used to be a co-equal branch of the government. The U.S. Congress used to be a formidable balance against the power of the President.

On paper (the U.S. Constitution) it is legislative branch, but what we have now is rule by Executive Order instead of legislation debated and voted on by our Senators and Representatives.

I guess all my political science textbooks from the early 1970s are obsolete.

Janet

The government should be afraid of its citizens, not the other way around.