5 things to know as Trump's 'national emergency' plan emerges to seize control of voting
The order, first reported on Thursday, uses as justification for the seizure a claim that China interfered in the 2020 presidential election. No evidence has ever emerged in the dozens of lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies that the 2020 presidential election was rigged, fraudulent, or in any meaningful way affected by illegal voting — and legal experts already raised red flags without even having seen the order that there is no power under the Constitution for a president to control voting practices.
Here are five fast details of what the executive order would do.
1. Voting machines will be banned — even those that print a paper ballot.
Section a.I of the order requires all ballots to be "full face paper ballots" that are "hand-marked." This would effectively prohibit the use of electronic voting machines — even those that print a paper ballot that can be verified by the voter.
For years, the use of fully paperless voting machines was an area of bipartisan concern and security. However, most voting machines these days print physical ballots and have a secure paper trail. Fully outlawing these would require dozens of states to overhaul their election procedures and potentially create bottlenecks to vote.
2. Ballot drop boxes for mail-in voters will be prohibited.
Section i.II states that drop boxes for mail ballots are "expressly prohibited."
A number of states supply drop boxes as a means of expediting ballot delivery to election centers, so ballots can be counted more efficiently and quickly, and so people have an extra secure option of returning their ballots. The use of drop boxes, and who was delivering ballots to them, was a significant focal point of the thoroughly debunked pro-Trump 2020 election documentary "2,000 Mules," which alleged with no evidence that people were being paid to illegally deliver huge loads of ballots outside of proper channels.
3. Voters will be required to notarize mail-in ballots before turning them in.
Section i.I requires every mail-in ballot be sealed and the outer envelope signed "in the presence of a notary" to verify identity — an extremely burdensome requirement that would make voting by mail dramatically harder.
A handful of states, like Mississippi and Oklahoma, have these requirements already, and a few more like Wisconsin and Virginia simply require a witness signature. Most states do not require this.
4. Everyone currently registered to vote will have to register again for the 2026 elections.
Under Section d.I, voters must "register in person or at a County satellite office anew for the 2026 United States election."
As of last year, 174 million people were registered to vote in the United States. Generally, voters are not required to re-register to vote unless they move, change their name, or if they're changing their party in a state that has partisan registration and closed primaries. This requirement to re-register, combined with the fact that it also prohibits online registration which is common in many states, would potentially cause chaos and overwhelm local election workers around the country.
5. The executive order claims to supersede virtually every major federal law on voting rights.
Section 7 of the order declares that whenever there is a conflict, the order overrides the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act, and the Uniformed Overseas and Citizens Absentee Voting Act — a huge category of laws that, among other things, protect against voter discrimination, establish standards for registration to vote, ensure the military have access to voting while overseas, and guarantee elections are administered to minimum standards.
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