Key Provision of Trump’s Free and Fair Elections Executive Order Rejected by District Court
By: Imani Castillo Yee
President Trump has staunchly supported measures to protect “free and fair elections” throughout his campaign for his second term in office, and has now attempted to put these plans into action. In March 2025, he issued an executive order regarding election procedures, one of the major steps his administration has taken to implement changes. The order instructs institutions including the US Election Assistance Committee (EAC) and members of the bureaucracy to ensure proper vote counting and registration of voters. Specifically, it includes provisions stating that mail-in ballots cannot be counted after Election Day, and that ballots cast by non-citizens cannot be counted in vote totals. It requires states to maintain lists of legally registered voters, a practice that has not been federally mandated in the past.
Section 2 of the order outlines the enforcement of citizenship requirements for voting. It establishes the measure of proof of documentation at the polls, such as a US passport, Real ID issued by the state, or military or government ID. Section 3 grants authority to the Attorney General and other executive branch officials to help verify IDs in state elections, which have historically been responsiblities under control over individual states.
The scope of this document indicates a broad attempt to restructure policy and execute the Trump administration’s vision of future elections, on local, state, and national levels. This vision involves enforcement by multiple individuals and institutions, both within the government and apolitical.
On October 31, 2025, a federal district court blocked the provision which requires proof of citizenship, after previously issuing a preliminary injunction. Judge Kollar-Kotelly, who has served on the bench since 1997, ruled that the order was unconstitutional on the grounds of its contradiction with the separation of powers. The joint coalition of plaintiffs, including organizations like the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, League of Women Voters of the US, and the ACLU of DC, released a statement highlighting their stance that the order was a clear attempt of anti-constitutional overreach of power. Additionally, this provision would force citizens to spend extra time gathering documentation in order to register to vote, increasing personal costs to maintain voting eligibility.
The US Election Assistance Committee, which was directly addressed in the executive order, is an agency that is non-partisan and independent of political control. According to the EAC website, its mission is to “help election officials improve the administration of elections and help Americans participate in the voting process.” In order to carry out these duties, they report to
Congress and holds public meetings and hearings to address election-related concerns. The court’s opinion emphasizes that the responsibility to regulate elections is squarely in the realm of Congress and the individual states, and therefore the president cannot dictate these stipulations through exclusively executive directives.
The order also requests that local administrative offices coordinate with federal agencies, which would likely affect the processing time for registrations. Mail-in ballots have been an increasingly common voting method since the COVID pandemic, and the existing policy states that they must be postmarked before Election Day in order to be counted. Under current regulations, delays in ballot transport after mailing do not affect the validity of the votes submitted by citizens who are unable to vote in person.
These mandates were not explicitly addressed in this case, as the court ruled expressly on the provision in Section 2. The executive order claims that the counting of delayed ballots is “like allowing persons who arrive 3 days after Election Day, perhaps after a winner has been declared, to vote in person at a former voting precinct, which would be absurd.” Although comprehensive actions to prevent counting of mail-in votes have not yet been taken by the legislature, this language makes it clear that the Trump administration aims to enforce these policies.
Election legitimacy has been in turmoil in the US, especially since the January 6, 2021 riots at the Capitol, invoked by Trump himself. His claims of a stolen election echo throughout the actions he has taken in this second term create a political environment where voters feel they can trust electoral systems and prevent “rigged” results. In reality, the approach Trump has put in place aims to suppress certain types of voters in particular, and is representative of a larger trend of the overreach of federal power.
Works Cited
Cohen, Matt. “Trump’s Administration Is Full of Election Deniers — They’re Already Working to Rig the Vote.” Democracy Docket, 15 Nov. 2025,
www.democracydocket.com/analysis/trumps-administration-is-full-of-election-deniers-th eyre-already-working-to-rig-the-vote/
“Court Strikes Down Key Part of Trump’s Unlawful Voting Executive Order, Permanently Blocking Show-Your-Papers Requirement.” Brennan Center for Justice, 31 Oct. 2025, www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/court-strikes-down-key-part-trumps-u nlawful-voting-executive-order.
“Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.” The White House, 25 Mar. 2025,
www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/preserving-and-protecting-the-integrit y-of-american-elections/.
Swenson, Ali and Nicholas Riccardi. “Judge Rules Trump Can’t Require U.S. Citizenship Proof on Federal Voting Form.” PBS NewsHour, 31 Oct. 2025,
www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/judge-rules-trump-cant-require-u-s-citizenship-proof-on federal-voting-form.
