The Supreme Court this week ended one of President Donald Trump’s most sweeping election proposals, the Trump mail voting plan, which would have required a rapid nationwide overhaul of mail-in ballot procedures that election officials said was unworkable on such short notice.
That case is only one piece of a broader push by the Republican president to expand federal influence over the midterms. Several other efforts remain active even as at least three states have mailed ballots and early voting begins in others.
Recently, the Department of Justice ordered officials in more than two dozen states to preserve 2024 election records as part of an ongoing effort to compel them to provide detailed voter data, despite repeated setbacks in court.
At the same time, the Department of Homeland Security has opened its own review to identify possible noncitizens on state voter rolls, an initiative a federal whistleblower describes as rushed, error prone and potentially in conflict with state laws.
Trump has continued to claim, without evidence, that mail ballots are corrupt, that noncitizens are common on voter lists and that Democrats engage in widespread fraud. Following Monday’s Supreme Court decision, he criticized the justices for lacking the “courage necessary to save our America.”
The Constitution assigns authority over elections to the states, not the federal government. Election officials say they are prepared to run a secure process even as the president escalates his rhetoric. Democratic groups say they are preparing contingency plans in case federal officers are sent to polling places or other improper interference occurs in a contest that will decide control of Congress.
What remains after the Trump mail voting plan ruling
Trump maintains, contrary to extensive research, that large numbers of noncitizens vote illegally. In his second term, he has sought to use federal powers to address the issue, including a major expansion of DHS’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, a database originally designed to help government agencies prevent certain benefits from going to noncitizens.
Last year Trump directed changes to SAVE to allow broad searches by election officials. His administration then sent letters and filed lawsuits urging states to run voter registration data through SAVE. Some states agreed, while many resisted to protect residents’ personal information. Since last year, at least 67 million registrations have been checked through the system. Critics warn eligible voters could be wrongly flagged, and some have been already.
In June, a federal judge blocked the updated SAVE program, calling it an illegal violation of Americans’ privacy. The administration has asked the Supreme Court for an emergency order to halt that ruling, and the justices have not yet weighed in.
Meanwhile, federal officials continue pressing states to provide voter registration information that includes addresses, dates of birth, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers. In July, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin warned state officials they could lose funding or face investigations if they did not comply with the administration’s election security directives. Last week, the DOJ sent letters to 29 states and the District of Columbia ordering preservation of 2024 election documents and stating they were under investigation and subject to ongoing litigation for failing to turn over the data.
Investigations have found that while noncitizens have occasionally appeared on voter rolls and cast ballots, it is extremely rare.
Without comprehensive state data, DHS in August directed a group of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services staff to shift to a full-time manual review of state voter rolls, according to a whistleblower report released Monday. The whistleblower said federal employees were told to misrepresent themselves on voter lookup tools in ways that likely violate state laws while comparing DHS data with state records to find potentially ineligible registrants.
The effort, known as the Unlawful Voter Initiative, also instructs staff to create federal law enforcement records about voters based on information the whistleblower says is unreliable, risking wrongful implications for U.S. citizens. DHS did not deny the work, saying the review uses publicly available state voter roll data cross-referenced with known noncitizens in federal systems and is being conducted diligently and professionally.
Trump’s broader attempts to reshape election administration have repeatedly met resistance in the courts, including two executive orders that are tied up in lawsuits alleging the changes are unconstitutional. He has also been unable to secure Senate passage of the SAVE America Act, a strict proof-of-citizenship bill.
At the same time, the administration has taken aggressive law enforcement actions that have succeeded. The FBI last year seized hundreds of boxes of ballots and other 2020 election materials in Georgia’s most populous county without public explanation. The bureau has also sought 2024 ballots from Michigan’s Wayne County and obtained 2020 election records from Arizona’s Maricopa County.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said Tuesday the administration will press ahead with investigations into voter fraud despite the Supreme Court’s ruling. “I expect you’re going to see that work continue,” he told reporters at a Rose Garden briefing.
Tammy Patrick of The Election Center, which counts nearly 2,500 election officials as members, said administrators welcomed the high court’s mail voting decision as it removed the most immediate threat to nationwide balloting. She and other officials said established procedures will carry the 2026 midterms. “Voters should realize the midterms are going to be secure,” Patrick said. “They’re going to be legitimate.”
One Response