Trump signs executive order limiting mail-in ballots; California leaders say they’ll fight

President Trump signed executive order On Tuesday, he purported to impose new federal controls on mail-in voting in states like California, repeating his long-held but unproven claim that mail-in ballots are a widespread source of fraud in U.S. elections.

California leaders immediately responded by vowing to challenge the decision in court. They said that while mail-in voting is a safe and secure method of voting that millions of Californians rely on, Trump’s order violates the state’s constitutional right to conduct elections as it sees fit and amounts to an “illegal power grab” ahead of midterm elections in which his party will suffer significant losses.

The order directs the United States Postal Service to take control of mail-in voting by designing new envelopes with special barcodes that will ensure that the federal government sends such ballots only to voters and ensures that only eligible voters return such ballots.

This requires states to submit to the USPS process if they plan to use the federal postal system to send or receive ballots, and to submit eligible voters to USPS lists before such ballots go through the postal system.

It also requires the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the Social Security Administration to “compile and forward to the chief election official of each State a list of persons verified as U.S. citizens who will be over 18 years of age at the time of the upcoming Federal election and who reside in such State.”

The order states that these lists will be drawn from federal citizenship and naturalization records, Social Security records, and “other relevant Federal databases,” and that USPS will be prohibited from transmitting ballots that do not match these lists.

“Secure ballot envelope identifiers provide a reliable, auditable mechanism to enforce Federal law without unduly burdening eligible voters or violating their rights,” the decision states. “Unique ballot identifiers, such as barcodes, allow only citizens to verify that they have received and cast ballots, reducing the risk of fraud and protecting the integrity of Federal elections.”

Trump, who recently voted in person by mail in Florida, framed the order as a solution to what is now “mass fraud” in US elections and has not backed it up with evidence.

“Mail voting fraud is legendary. What’s happening is terrible,” Trump said.

“He will make sure that mail-in ballots are secure and accurate,” said Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who appeared on stage with Trump and whose agency the order requires to be involved in coordinating new voting measures.

California officials accused the President of attacking and undermining election integrity rather than supporting it and said they would fight the order’s enactment.

“President Trump’s Executive Order marks a dangerous and unprecedented escalation in his ongoing attacks on our elections. The power to regulate elections belongs to the United States and Congress; it has no role to play. We have blocked the previous Executive Order on elections in court and are ready to stop it again,” the California Advocate said. Gen. Rob Bonta.

“The reality is that President Trump and Republicans in Congress see the writing on the wall — they will likely lose in the upcoming midterm elections — and they are pushing to make it harder for people to vote,” Bonta added. “We will not remain idle”

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) told The Times that Trump’s actions are “a clear and present threat to our democracy,” that he will “use every tool at my disposal to stop him” and that he expects “immediate legal challenges to protect our free and fair elections.”

“Instead of focusing on lowering the costs of energy, food and health care, Donald Trump is desperately trying to take over, rig our election and avoid accountability in November. This executive order is a blatant, unconstitutional abuse of power,” said Padilla, the top Democrat on the Senate Rules and Administration Committee.

“The President and the Department of Homeland Security have no authority to conduct federal elections or direct the independent Postal Service to undermine mail and absentee voting that nearly 50 million Americans rely on in 2024,” he said. “A decade of lies about election fraud does not change the Constitution.”

“Amidst an unauthorized war abroad and escalating authoritarian pressure from ICE at home, Trump is attempting another illegal power grab,” Padilla said.

The vast majority of Californians vote by mail. About 89% of votes in the 2025 special election for Proposition 50, the state’s mid-decade redistricting measure, were cast by mail, according to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber’s office, or about 10.3 million of about 11.6 million votes cast.

Trump has long criticized mail-in ballots (without evidence) as a source of fraud and a factor in losing the 2020 election to President Biden, and he still maintains it is illegitimate.

Election experts, voting rights advocates, local election officials and other California leaders have dismissed these claims as baseless and inaccurate. They are also preparing for Trump to take action to block such votes.

Padilla had previously warned his colleagues that he would force a vote on any attempt by Trump to declare a national emergency to seize control of this year’s midterm elections from the states, forcing them to either co-sign or resist the seizure of power.

Critics of mail-in voting are also actively working to end or restrict the practice. Just last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case in which the Republican Party challenged a Mississippi law that allows ballots to be accepted and counted if they arrive up to five days after election day.

During those arguments, the court’s six conservatives appeared poised to rule that federal law requires ballots to be received by election day to be considered legal.

Weber, California’s top elections official, warned that attacks on mail-in voting risked undermining the system the state has built for years around universal mail-in voting.

Trump’s executive order is the latest front in a years-long campaign attacking the integrity of US elections and contributing to a sharp decline in voter confidence in US elections.

Trump on Tuesday said his order was crafted by “great legal minds” and would survive any legal challenge unless “rogue” judges improperly rule against the order.

“We want honest voting in our country,” he said.

Rick Hasen, an election law expert and director of the Project on Protecting Democracy at UCLA Law, argued otherwise in a post Tuesday, noting that an earlier executive order purporting to impose new federal controls on elections had been blocked in court and that “this probably wouldn’t work any better.”

“To put this plainly: the order will use USPS, which is not under the President’s direct control, to interfere with the state’s legal ballot transmission. If the state does not comply with these rules, federal law would purport to interfere with the state’s administration of its own elections,” Hasen wrote. “The President does not have such authority”