Trump is pulling every lever to reshape U.S. elections
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President Trump's playbook for reshaping America's elections targets who appears on voter rolls, how ballots move through the mail, who monitors polling places and where congressional lines are drawn.
- The effort leaves virtually no part of the election system untouched.
Why it matters: Voting-rights experts say the churn is designed to sow confusion, deter turnout and undermine trust in elections. Even measures later blocked in court can create uncertainty and erode trust before Election Day.
Driving the news: A federal judge on Wednesday lifted a nationwide block on the administration's overhaul of the U.S. Postal Service's role in mail voting, just before states begin sending ballots.
- The plan requires states to redesign ballot envelopes and upload voter lists to the Postal Service. The Postal Service can reject an election office's outgoing ballot mailing if it fails to meet the new preparation and data requirements, forcing officials to correct the issue before resubmitting it.
- Twenty-four attorneys general and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro sued Wednesday, arguing the plan would require "Herculean tasks" with "limited resources."
The big picture: The mail-voting fight is just the latest front as Trump has used executive orders, federal agencies, Justice Department lawsuits and the bully pulpit to rewrite election rules largely set by the states and Congress.
- Andrew Garber, senior counsel with the Brennan Center for Justice, says the president has no constitutional power to set election rules.
- "There's really just no room in our system for the president to step in," he says.
What they're saying: "President Trump is not waiting until election day to cast doubt on this election," Molly McGrath, director of national democracy campaigns at the ACLU, tells Axios.
- "When you have executive orders issued that are so clearly unconstitutional, part of the intended byproduct of that is the confusion that they create. It's not a bug."
Here's some of the ways the president has tried to reshape voting rights:
Voter rolls
Trump directed DHS to compile state-by-state lists of confirmed U.S. citizens for election officials to use in citizenship checks.
- Voting rights groups say noncitizens rarely vote and warn existing citizenship lists often improperly flag eligible voters. DHS itself recently acknowledged its noncitizen voting figures were inflated.
DOJ has also sued most states to demand unredacted voter-registration lists, saying it needs the data to enforce federal laws.
- So far, 23 of the lawsuits have been dismissed, according to Brennan, while others remain pending.
SAVE America Act
Trump has demanded Congress pass the SAVE Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote.
- "The SAVE Act is a modern day poll tax," Carol Evans, vice president of policy at Common Cause, tells Axios.
- Obtaining documents can cost hundreds of dollars, potentially disenfranchising over 21 million eligible voters, according to the Center for American Progress — including women whose married names don't match their birth certificates and Americans without passports.
The other side: White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said Democrats are fighting "commonsense election integrity measures … strongly supported by the vast majority of Americans."
- "This legislation will make sure Americans, and Americans only, decide our elections," Bis said.
Trump has also removed the Democratic members of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission after the panel resisted his push to add proof-of-citizenship requirements to the federal voter-registration form.
Early voting
Despite encouraging Republicans to vote early, Trump has insisted that Democrats who do the same are cheating.
- Restrictions on Sunday early voting could disrupt "Souls to the Polls," when many Black churches bring congregants to vote after services.
Redistricting
Trump "set off a redistricting war" by demanding Republican-led states redraw congressional maps mid-decade, prompting Democratic-led states to respond in kind, Trey Hood, director of the University of Georgia's Survey Research Center, tells Axios.
- Republicans have redrawn enough districts to potentially gain an electoral advantage.
- An Axios analysis found the redistricting changes were worth a 1.8-point swing in the national margin.
Federal agents
The Trump administration has repeatedly floated the possibility of federal agents and ICE at or around the polls.
- There is no concrete evidence of a deployment plan, but voting rights groups say the rhetoric alone creates a chilling effect in immigrant communities.
- DOJ is preparing to deploy about 1,000 election monitors, potentially the largest such deployment under a Republican administration.
Reality check: The DOJ has lost its voter-data lawsuits so far. The SAVE Act has not passed the Senate. And the legality of the Postal Service rule remains unresolved even though it can now take effect.
- "Most of the efforts the administration has undertaken to attack our elections are not succeeding," Garber says, noting frequent court losses.
- The point, Garber says, is to "flood the zone, confuse people and to scare people into thinking their right to vote is in jeopardy."
The bottom line: The rhetoric, rule changes and litigation have eroded voter trust, created administrative headaches, and forced states and voting rights groups to spend time and resources fighting before November.
