President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that civil rights advocates, election experts, and Democratic officials are calling one of the most aggressive attacks on voting access in recent memory. The order, which Trump claimed is about “voter integrity,” would restrict who can receive a mail-in ballot and hand the federal government significant new control over state-run elections. For Black and underserved communities, the stakes could not be higher.

The order requires the Department of Homeland Security to create a list of confirmed U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote in each state, using data from the Social Security Administration. States would then be required to provide the U.S. Postal Service with a list of voters they plan to send ballots to at least 60 days before any federal election, and the USPS would only be authorized to deliver ballots to people on that approved list. You can read the full order on the White House website.

In plain terms: if your name is not on a government-compiled list weeks before Election Day, you may not get a ballot.

States that don’t comply risk losing federal funding. The order also directs the attorney general to prioritize investigations and prosecutions of election officials who issue ballots to ineligible voters, according to CBS News.

Trump, speaking in the Oval Office after signing the order, repeated his long-running and debunked claims about widespread fraud. “The cheating on mail-in voting is legendary,” he said. Notably, Trump has himself voted by mail multiple times, including in a Florida special election earlier this year.

The Pushback Is Already Organized

The ACLU, the League of Women Voters, the Brennan Center for Justice, and several Democratic state officials all vowed to sue the Trump administration following the order’s signing, per UPI.

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold was direct, telling CNN: “While Trump says mail ballots are illegitimate, he has voted by mail ballot for years. The Constitution is clear: states oversee elections, not Trump. We look forward to this unconstitutional overreach being stopped in court.”

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, whose state sees about 80% of its voters cast ballots by mail, added: “President Trump can sign all the executive orders he wants. It won’t change the United States Constitution. We will use every legal tool available to defend Arizona’s elections, Arizona’s voters, and Arizona’s constitutional right to run its own elections.”

This is Trump’s second executive order targeting elections since returning to office. Courts blocked many provisions of his first order, signed in March 2025. Legal experts expect a similar outcome here, though the fight through the courts takes time, and with midterm elections approaching in November, time is exactly what voters cannot afford to lose.

The vote is the floor of democracy. Every attempt to make it harder to cast a ballot is a direct attack on the communities that fought the longest and hardest to earn that right in the first place.