AILSA CHANG, HOST:
President Trump signed an executive order yesterday that aims to make sweeping changes to elections and voter registration, including a proof of citizenship requirement. Legal experts are calling it an overreach of presidential authority and warn that the provisions could block tens of millions of eligible Americans from voting. Joining us now with more is NPR's Jude Joffe-Block. Hi, Jude.
JUDE JOFFE-BLOCK, BYLINE: Hello.
CHANG: Hello. OK, so what exactly is in this executive order?
JOFFE-BLOCK: Right, well, there's a lot in here. And so it lays out a number of new requirements and says if states don't comply, they will not get federal funding. So one big change is this new proof of citizenship requirement to register to vote in federal elections. So you'd need to show a copy of a citizenship document, like a passport, to a local or state official in order to register to vote or whenever you update your registration, like if you move. Another change, the executive order aims to stop states from counting mailed ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but arrive after. This is something that a lot of states allow.
CHANG: Wait. Legally, can the president make all of these changes simply by executive order?
JOFFE-BLOCK: Well, that's really the key question. So Trump is trying to assert that he, as president, has authority over elections. And that's not been the case. We have a decentralized system where states make a lot of their own election rules. But this order seeks to expand the president's power and test how far it can go. We've already heard from voting rights advocates that lawsuits are going to challenge this. And normally an overhaul like this would be something for Congress to take on. And in fact, Republicans have been backing a bill called the SAVE Act that includes a lot of the same provisions as this order. That bill likely faces an uphill battle in the Senate. So instead, some critics are saying Trump is forcing through that legislation by executive fiat.
CHANG: Well, what has President Trump said about why he's pushing these changes?
JOFFE-BLOCK: Well, he says it's necessary for election integrity. Here he is yesterday when he signed the order.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We got to straighten out our election. This country is so sick because of the election, the fake elections and the bad elections.
JOFFE-BLOCK: You know, of course, Trump touts the results of the last election, which he won. But it's long been part of his brand to make false claims about voter fraud, most notably when he denied the results of the 2020 election. And in the lead-up to this past election, he and his allies made baseless claims about the threat of noncitizens voting in large numbers, which we know from audits and studies that such cases are really rare. Yet, that's what they're targeting here.
CHANG: Yeah. OK, well, I'm curious. How are voting experts reacting to this order?
JOFFE-BLOCK: Well, I spoke with UCLA law professor Rick Hasen. And he brought up how very rare these cases of noncitizen voting are but that a proof of citizenship requirement would have a big impact and could disenfranchise millions of voters.
RICK HASEN: So you'd be using a very strict rule to prevent a very small amount of fraud. The intention seems likely to be to suppress the vote rather than to try to make our elections filled with greater integrity.
JOFFE-BLOCK: And, you know, people are already asked on voter registration forms to attest under penalty of perjury if they're citizens and eligible to vote. And they can face prison or deportation if they try to vote illegally.
CHANG: OK, say more about how Rick Hasen told you, if this order stands, millions of voters could be disenfranchised. Like, how would that happen exactly?
JOFFE-BLOCK: Well, past studies have found that almost 1 in 10 Americans doesn't have a proof of citizenship document or doesn't have easy access to one. And this order is also a bit vague about even which documents would be accepted as proof. It doesn't explicitly name birth certificates. It does name passports, but only about half of Americans have those. They cost money and take a while to get. This rule would likely upend voter registration drives and other ways that Americans are used to signing up to vote, so this would really be a sea change.
CHANG: That is NPR's Jude Joffe-Block. Thank you, Jude.
JOFFE-BLOCK: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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