Trump’s Unconstitutional Executive Order Limiting Voters’ Rights

Summary

Bulwark Takes: Trump’s Unconstitutional Executive Order Limiting Voters’ Rights

Episode Overview Released on March 26, 2025, Bulwark Takes delves into the implications of former President Donald Trump’s latest executive order aimed at restricting voter rights. Host Lauren Egan engages with election expert Steven Richard to dissect the order’s provisions, constitutional ramifications, and potential impact on upcoming elections.

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1. Introduction to the Executive Order

Lauren Egan opens the discussion by highlighting the recent executive order signed by Donald Trump, which mandates that voters provide documented proof of citizenship during the registration process.

Lauren Egan [00:30]: "Donald Trump signed an executive order that requires people to provide documents proving they are citizens when they register to vote."

2. Detailed Breakdown of the Executive Order

Steven Richard provides a comprehensive overview of the executive order's key components, emphasizing its scope and the unprecedented nature of its issuance.

Steven Richard [01:38]: "This executive order does a number of things that really represents a federal power grab over the states and also completely cuts Congress out of a number of things that they were considering."

Key provisions discussed include:

• Proof of Citizenship: Transitioning from an attestation to mandatory documented proof.
• Mail Ballot Regulations: Changes to when and how mail ballots can be dropped off.
• Database Access: Granting the Department of Homeland Security access to statewide voter registration databases.
• Investigation Authority: Empowering the Attorney General to investigate potential voter fraud.
• Elections Assistance Commission (EAC): Implementing technical adjustments affecting the EAC’s operations.

3. Constitutional Concerns and Separation of Powers

Egan and Richard delve into the constitutional issues raised by the executive order, particularly focusing on Article 1, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution, which delineates state powers over election regulations and Congressional oversight.

Lauren Egan [03:17]: "Article 1, Section 4, that states have the power to regulate time and place, manner of elections, and that it's Congress that can step in and override those laws. There is nothing in there about the president or an executive order."

Steven Richard [03:45]: "This executive order represents a standardization of election rules saying states can and can't do some things. And so that, again, that's a departure from what has been done."

4. Implications for Voter Registration and Rights

The conversation shifts to the practical effects of requiring documented proof of citizenship. Richard uses Arizona as a case study to illustrate the potential outcomes of the executive order.

Steven Richard [05:05]: "In Arizona... 99.6% of registrants were able to easily provide documented proof of citizenship because increasingly this is just incorporated into real ID."

He notes that while the majority would comply seamlessly, approximately 0.4% might be disenfranchised due to lack of documentation, raising concerns among voting rights advocates.

5. Republican Response and Congressional Roles

Egan questions why the executive order bypassed Congress, especially when the legislative branch was actively debating similar measures like the SAVE Act.

Lauren Egan [07:09]: "This is going through the normal process in our lawmaking branch. Now, the frustrating thing to me is that the Congress, especially Republican members of the Congress, don't seem all that frustrated by the usurpation of their authority under Article 1 of the Constitution."

Steven Richard [07:09]: "Republicans… seem totally fine just handing it all over to the President. But I think that's constitutionally problematic, and I also don't think it's good governance."

6. Potential Legal Challenges and Short-Term Consequences

The duo anticipates immediate legal battles and logistical chaos, particularly concerning imminent elections in states like Florida and Arizona.

Lauren Egan [08:30]: "There will almost certainly be lawsuits against this."

Steven Richard [09:24]: "Various public interest groups will file and ask for a temporary restraining order... we have to quickly figure out how a state like Florida can enact this such that people can participate in its special federal elections."

Richard underscores the uncertainty and confusion that election officials will face, disrupting the established administration and potentially undermining election integrity.

7. Impact on Upcoming Elections

The executive order’s timing coincides with critical elections, adding layers of complexity and potential disenfranchisement.

Steven Richard [09:16]: "Florida has two special elections coming up to replace departed House members. Arizona just had a member of the U.S. house die. And so we'll have to have a special election to replace him. So this isn't like a 2026 process."

8. Trump’s Narrative on Election Fraud

Egan probes the alignment of the executive order with Trump’s persistent claims of election fraud, questioning its necessity given recent election confidence levels.

Lauren Egan [10:18]: "We've had a lot of conversations about Trump's fixation on election fraud… especially when he's sitting in the White House saying that this, he's signing this to get rid of fraudulent elections."

Steven Richard [10:40]: "I thought we'd solved it... election confidence in our elections, even among Republicans, is very high right now."

Richard expresses skepticism about the purported need for the executive order, suggesting it may be more about consolidating political influence than addressing genuine electoral concerns.

9. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Wrapping up, Richard reiterates his concerns about the executive order's constitutionality and governance implications, cautioning against the precedent it sets for future administrations.

Steven Richard [12:12]: "What they are doing is throwing things into disarray and making election officials wonder and have to follow court cases so that they can even know what the heck they're doing."

Final Remarks Lauren Egan thanks Steven Richard for his insights, highlighting the episode's thorough examination of the executive order's multifaceted impact on American democracy.

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Key Takeaways:

• Federal vs. State Authority: The executive order challenges the traditional balance of power, centralizing election regulations at the federal level.
• Voter Documentation: While intended to prevent fraud, the mandate for documented citizenship proof could disenfranchise a small percentage of voters.
• Legal and Logistical Hurdles: Immediate legal challenges and operational chaos are anticipated, especially for upcoming elections.
• Political Motivations: The order may serve Trump’s longstanding narrative on election integrity, despite high confidence levels in recent electoral processes.

Notable Quotes:

• Lauren Egan [00:30]: Introduction of the executive order requiring citizenship proof for voter registration.
• Steven Richard [01:38]: Overview of the executive order as a federal power grab bypassing Congress.
• Lauren Egan [03:17]: References to constitutional provisions regarding election regulation.
• Steven Richard [05:05]: Insights from Arizona’s experience with citizenship documentation.
• Steven Richard [07:09]: Critique of Republicans’ acceptance of presidential overreach.
• Steven Richard [09:24]: Anticipation of legal challenges affecting upcoming elections.
• Steven Richard [10:40]: Doubts about the necessity of the executive order given recent election confidence.

This episode of Bulwark Takes offers a critical analysis of Trump’s executive order, emphasizing its constitutional challenges, potential to disrupt electoral processes, and the broader implications for federalism and voter rights in the United States.

Transcript

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[Lauren Egan]

Hey guys, it's Lauren Egan here at the Bulwark. You might have seen this yesterday, but Donald Trump signed an executive order that requires people to provide documents proving they are citizens when they register to vote.

[Donald Trump]

Election fraud. You've heard the term. We'll end it. Hopefully at least this will go a long way toward ending it. There are other steps that we will be taking as an ex in the coming weeks.

[Lauren Egan]

He gave a little speech about this. He basically said it's all aimed at getting rid of election fraud. I'm putting that in quotation marks because that is a problem that we don't actually have in this country. Anyways, we've got Steven Richard here today. He is the former county recorder of Maricopa County. He's going to talk through this with with us. You all probably recognize Stephen, he's been on the Bulwark many times before and he knows a thing or two about elections and voter registration. So, Stephen, thank you for being here with us.

[Steven Richard]

It's good to be back.

[Lauren Egan]

Okay, so can you just walk me through like, baseline level what this EO actually does?

[Steven Richard]

It does a number of things and I'm just a little bit surprised that it took, what are we, 53rd. 53rd day of the administration. Given how much President Trump has talked about elections over the past 4, 8, 12 years and all these theories of stolen elections, I'm a little surprised it took this long. But at a high level, this executive order does a number of things that really represents a federal power grab over the states and also completely cuts Congress out of a number of things that they were considering. So the top line one is that it would require documented proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. Previously and under federal law, all you had to do was attest that you are a United States citizen. I actually agree with the president. As a matter of public Policy. But I think the real kicker here is that this was a law that was written by Congress and signed by the president previously. And this is something that the Congress is currently debating with respect to the SAVE Act. And here the president just went ahead and ignored all of that and did it by executive order. It does some other things as well, pertaining to when people can drop off their mail ballots. It does some things as far as giving DOGE access to all the statewide voter registration databases, and it authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to share some things. It authorizes the attorney in General to investigate some things. It also does some technical things with respect to something called the EAC or the Elections Assistance Commission.

[Lauren Egan]

Yeah, I mean, to your point, like, this is a big thing with this Trump administration just kind of completely cutting out the legislative branch in a way. Like, I'm literally, like, pulling up the Constitution right now, which says Article 1, Section 4, that states have the power to regulate time and place, manner of elections, and that it's Congress that can step in and override those laws. There is nothing in there about the president or an eo. I mean, how alarming is that to you?

[Steven Richard]

Well, it's very different than what has been done over the entire course of United States history. So alarming or not, it's just very different. And I think that's going to merit a lot of legal scrutiny. As a result, I would imagine some states are going to be clamoring about this and probably also some conservatives who still believe in federalism. Conservatives used to say that it's a wonderful thing that each state gets to do it its own way, because these are the laboratories of democracy, and we get to experiment and we get to figure it out. And what might work for California, might not work for Texas. But this executive order represents a standardization of election rules saying states can and can't do some things. And so that, again, that's a departure from what has been done. And it also seems to me to be a departure from what, what the United States Constitution calls for, which is that, broadly speaking, states have the power to set the rules of their own election administrations.

[Lauren Egan]

Yeah. Can you talk to me a little bit more about proving the proof of citizenship? You said, you know, that's not something that you think is necessarily a bad thing. Some voting rights experts have come out, you know, some of some of the groups and said, this is going to, this is going to, this is bad. This is going to prevent people from being able to vote. But walk me through how you're thinking about that.

[Steven Richard]

So In Arizona. I was an elected official in Arizona. And Arizona is actually one of the states that has had a documented proof of citizenship law for a number of years. Now, because that previously conflicted with federal law, we could only require it for our state and local elections. And under that law, 99.6% of registrants were able to easily provide documented proof of citizenship because increasingly this is just incorporated into real id, which is a feature of most states. And most states have some sort of communication sharing between the statewide voter registration database and the Department of Motor Vehicles or the MVD or dmv, depending on what the state calls it. So most of that information could be shared seamlessly. Now, again, there's 0.4% of Arizonans who have not provided that documented proof of citizenship. And so that's something that if this comes into effect, those people would no longer be able to vote into any election, not just federal elections, as they would here in Arizona and a number of states. I don't know if it's as seamless. So this is certainly something that would be top of mind for a lot of voting rights groups who would be concerned that these individuals who attest that they are United States citizens under penalty of law, but have not yet provided, say, a birth certificate or, or a passport, voting rights groups might be worried that those people might not stay on the voter rolls because they can't access that information. Again, my personal policy preference is this isn't that much of a burden to ask of voters and that it's something that helps with our security and it helps with our cleanliness, the hygiene of our voter rolls. But just the manner in which it's being done, just by executive order, when this is something that Congress has been considering for a few years now, seems ham fisted.

[Lauren Egan]

Yeah. And again, this is just something like you mentioned, Congress is, is looking at the issue now, and it's confusing why, why Trump would just kind of go around them for this.

[Steven Richard]

Yeah, I think there's a vote coming up very soon in the House on the SAVE act, and then that would go to the Senate. I don't think it has the votes for the Senate. But the point is, is that this is going through the normal process in our lawmaking branch. Now, the frustrating thing to me is that the Congress, especially Republican members of the Congress, don't seem all that frustrated by the usurpation of their authority under Article 1 of the Constitution. They seem totally fine just handing it all over to the President. But I think that's constitutionally problematic, and I Also don't think it's good governance. And I would also remind Republicans that that which giveth can taketh away. And if there's a Democratic president, could he enact something like the for the People act that Dems wanted passed under Biden? Could he just do that by executive order? I don't think that's a good game to be paying public policy wise.

[Lauren Egan]

Yeah, totally. You know, we mentioned that there, there will almost certainly be lawsuits against this. But in the short term, what do you think's going to happen? Because Trump's threatening to withhold federal funding from states that don't comply, I imagine, I mean, explain this to me, but I imagine that states rely pretty heavily on some of that funding to hold their elections. So how do you think this is going to practically play out?

[Steven Richard]

Yeah. So weirdly. No.

[Lauren Egan]

Really? Okay, that's surprising.

[Steven Richard]

Federal funding. Now maybe he'll turn on the federal funding and that will be the cudgel.

[Lauren Egan]

Like use it as like a carrot kind of. Yeah.

[Steven Richard]

Okay. But there are limitations as to what you can do as the federal government to strong arm states into compliance through federal dollars. I think they'll be tested, I think, for immediate terms. It's going to create chaos, it's going to create confusion. And unfortunately, a few jurisdictions have federal elections coming up. Florida has two special elections coming up to replace departed House members. Arizona just had a member of the U.S. house die. And so we'll have to have a special election to replace him. So this isn't like a 2026 process.

[Lauren Egan]

Yeah. And like the Florida election. Yeah. Is next week. So what do you think? I mean, what's going to happen? What do you, how is that going to work?

[Steven Richard]

What's going to happen? I think that various public interest groups will file and ask for a temporary restraining order, and then that will either be granted or it won't be. And if it's not granted, then we're going to have to quickly figure out how a state like Florida can enact this such that people can participate in its special federal elections.

[Lauren Egan]

Yeah, that seems incredibly messy.

[Steven Richard]

And election officials like consistency. Most election officials I know aren't terribly political and they have some thoughts on election administration law, but generally speaking, they just like a playbook and they like to know it in advance. And so if you really want to bother election officials, this is how you do it. By throwing things into disarray and by making them wonder and have to follow court cases so that they can even know what the heck they're doing.

[Lauren Egan]

You know, we've had, we've had a lot of conversations about Trump's fixation on election fraud. And obviously he's peddled a lot of conspiracies about this. Does this play into that at all in your mind, especially when he's sitting in the White House saying that this, he's signing this to get rid of fraudulent elections?

[Steven Richard]

Yeah, but I thought we'd solved it. I thought everyone thought the 2024 elections was great. Right.

[Lauren Egan]

What does it say about this last election? Yeah.

[Steven Richard]

Didn't he win fairly? And election confidence in our elections, even among Republicans, is very high right now. So there's a little bit of a sense, what, what problem are you solving? That being said, we knew this was a passion project of President Trump's. We knew that documentous proof of citizenship has been a interest for Speaker Johnson for some time now. And so it's not terribly surprising to me that this was incorporated into the executive order. I think some of the other stuff, such as the certification of different tabulation machines and what can and cannot be done, or the deadline by which mail ballots have to be returned, that's a little more surprising. And again, that's getting out pretty far ahead of what the federal government will normally legislate on with respect to elections.

[Lauren Egan]

Yeah, because like you mentioned California just so ingrained in some states, sort of like voting culture and voting behavior, that as long as it's postmarked, you know, it's fine.

[Steven Richard]

And that's, I think about 18 states as long have allow mail ballots to be returned in some capacity after election day. And some of those are specific to military voters. And that's usually not a community that Republican officials want to touch too much.

[Lauren Egan]

Right, right, right. Well, Stephen, thank you for coming here and explaining this, this to us. Come back again and really appreciate it.

[Steven Richard]

Of course. Thank you.

[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Steven Richard]

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[Ryan Seacrest]

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