Progressive groups denounce the move as an effort to curb millions of voters who don’t have immediate access to government IDs.
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order requiring Americans to provide evidence of citizenship for the sake of vote, claiming that the move is necessary to “settle” election fraud.
Trump’s order, signed to the Election Assistance Committee on Tuesday, asked voters to require them to create a US passport or other valid government ID when registering for federal elections.
The order also directs US states to receive all votes by Election Day and not to count mail-order ballots that arrive after the polls have concluded.
Trump said his orders would “hopefully” end the election fraud and repeat his false claims that he won the 2020 presidential election in a “landslide.”
“At least this will go a long way to get that to an end. There are other steps we’ll take in the coming weeks, and I think we’ll get a fair election,” Trump said he signed the order at the White House.
“We have to straighten the election,” Trump added.
“This country gets very sick due to elections, fake elections and bad elections.
Trump’s orders continue his long railing history against alleged election fraud, including non-citizen voting. This is illegal and research has shown to be extremely rare.
Trump often questioned the outcome of elections that have not gone down his path, including his defeat to the former US president in 2020.
Democrats and progressive groups have long opposed Republican-led efforts to require voters to create IDs because poor and older voters may not be able to easily access documents such as passports and birth certificates.
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the progressive advocacy group, Public Citizen, described Trump’s order as “a blatant attack on democracy” and “a glove of authoritarian power.”
“Donald Trump’s executive order will compromise our election system, curb votes among millions of Americans, especially people of color, and pave the way for even more Trump’s false claims of election fraud,” Gilbert said in a statement.
Richard Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, who runs the election law blog, also denounced the move, saying it would potentially disenfranchise millions of voters.
“This prevents small number of non-citizen voters from registering, but stops millions of eligible voters who don’t have easy access to documents such as passports from registration to voting,” Hasen said on his blog.
“The purpose here is pure and simple voter suppression,” he added.
