This EO will be challenged immediately.
Trump now wants to tell states how to conduct elections. The WSJ reports Trump Calls for Voter Identification for All U.S. Elections
President Trump pledged to sign an executive order mandating that voters be required to present identification before casting ballots, widening his push to alter voting requirements ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
If he seeks to change voting requirements, he would likely be challenged in court because elections are administered by states. The Constitution gives Congress the power to change those rules.
In June, a federal judge blocked most of Trump’s March executive order that required proof-of-citizenship documentation for those registering to vote using federal forms and tapped government agencies to crack down on ineligible voters. Most people register to vote through their states.
The order threatened to pull the small amount of money earmarked by Congress for elections from states that fail to comply.
The judge ruled that the order went beyond Trump’s authority.
Thirty-six states have laws requesting or requiring voters to show some form of identification at the polls, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In Congress, lawmakers have introduced a bill to require voters to show identification to vote.
I sympathize with voter ID and in-person voting as Trump wants.
However, it’s not Trump’s call nor mine nor yours.
Moreover, if Trump can mandate in-person voting, what’s to stop the next president from mandating mail-in ballots for everyone?
His executive order is unconstitutional and headed nowhere. And that’s a good thing because who knows what Democrats might do the next time they get a chance.
Constitutionally, Trump should ask Congress for changes. But that would take 60 votes and he does not have them.
Correction
My title incorrectly stated no paper ballots. I meant to say mandatory paper ballots.
Apologies.
And any state that does exhibit total transparency in voting procedures for federal candidates shall not be accepted ???
the issue with this is which ID counts and will people be able to get the right one in time?
i remember the uproar when Rick Perry passed a law making gun license ID valid for voting but not college ID.
Another issue is cost– in some jurisdictions it was free but only if people specifically asked for fee to be waived and they didn’t specificlly advertise that it could be waived.
So yes in theory it sounds like a reasonable step but excuse me if I don’t trust that the administration that literally tried to steal an election with fake ballots, a Capitol riot, and one who asks state AGS to “fine me the votes” will be issuing IDs in good faith in areas where they can control it.
there’s so many ways to game the ID process– from what they accept as proof of identity before issuing of ID, to processing time and so on. A bureacracy bent on winning and with zero morals and a demonstrated disdain for elections can easily rig the vote by slow walking ID issuance or refusing them on all sorts of BS and pretense.
and i am sure Trump wouldn’t be doing this if he didn’t have some data that it would help Republicans and hurt Dems.
on the face of it it seems ok, it wouldn’t be an issue for me but I am 100% sure that Republicans studied this and concluded it helps them and hurts Dems.
This is step 1, which is combined with step 2, getting rid of voting places in the South requiring people to stand in line for hours, and those ridiculous laws about not giving someone in line a drink.
This is to stuff the lines with MAGA disability recipients that have all day to stand in line.
Elections are easy, every tin pot dictatorship on the planet has them. Fair elections are more difficult. The right to vote is equivalent to the right for free elections.
I live in a state with an ID requirement since 2009 and every ballot I’ve cast has been paper. It works just fine.
Conservatives love that Trump is trying to engineer a 100% win rate for the GOP, they could not be happier. Or we will hear from those who don’t think this is a great plan.
Pray tell me. how will verified voters Voting, create a 100% win rate for the GOP?
Do you mean the Dems have been cheating previously?
Oh whoopee: now require E verify for all 50 states and the District Of Criminal’s no E verify required so as to prevent the hiring of illegal aliens as well as ending their current employment regardless of occupation or government role and their welfare benefits, Donnie boy.
Trump signs executive order changing tap water into wine.
Support your local AA chapter.
You are funny Lisa.
Ask LBJ. It’s easy to cheat with paper ballots.
LBJ ? Your kidding right?
The perception is that they are planning to rig the coming elections. Polling places will be viewed as unprivate & controlled by the riggers.
Voters will stay home, if mail-in not available.
Wake up !!! Flavia… Please wake up
We should be encouraging voting, not discouraging it. What’s wrong with these people?
They hate our country. It’s obvious.
Phil. How are dead people going to vote democrat now?
Give us one proven example. More Republican lies.
David the vast majority of voter fraud convictions are conservatives, that’s a fact
the little proven vter fraud we’ve had has been overwhelmingly Republican.
This President is a troll, plain and simple. With the power of the Presidency, he has the loudest megaphone that he has ever had to troll whomever he wants. He uses tweets and executive orders that he knows and his advisors know have no teeth.
Everyone who stole lunch money in elementary school is peeing themselves with glee
In the 1780’s/ 90’s only landowners could vote in the US and in Europe. It cont until the civil war. Black votes were suppressed. Women couldn’t vote in the first 150 years.
Is that your official opinion of where Trump is trying to take the US with his MAGA slogan and this new EO?
LOL
The rest of the story…. in the 1780’s/90’s the only taxes were property taxes and only those that owned land were able to tax themselves. What a great system!
Now people can tax someone else, and pay nothing themselves. What a disaster!
People that want more and don’t want to earn it, just tax others. If no body is willing to pay, they just vote for people that will barow it.
Frontier nations, those newly independent nations from colonialization, herd together in the 50’s, 60’s and the 70’s.They promised freedom and liberty, but ruled with an iron fist: Bandung conference in Indonesia 1955, the Non Alliance Movement, the African Union, the Latin American conference and today they gang together in Tianjin. We became more independent from their shackles. We will produce essential stuff in new modern factories and with AI, ourselves.
Every state in the country already has a mandatory voter id requirement at some point in the process. The biggest users of mail-in ballots are older folks who don’t want to stand in long lines, and they’re the highest percentage voters for Republicans. Typical Trumpian nonsense for his gullible worshipers.
What about in 2020 when we had individuals show up at 2:am at voter drop boxes that looked like a mailbox, with a stack of what looked like 100 votes?
Either they have a big family or something was up no?
And when they tracked that individuals cell phone they found it was done almost a dozen times a week from early voting in Oct till election night. And then that cell phone was never tracked in that area for 3 months after the election.
They got fired from their job? LOL, no they were getting paid per ballot to do that.
If you do not think there is voter fraud going on in mail in ballots then God bless you.
i doubt it hurts Republicans. they wouldn’t do it if they werent’ sure it would help.
they’ll make sure lines are longer in Dem districts.
The closer you get to 100% participation the less likely parties are to focus just on their base. Australia has the right idea with mandatory voting (with an option to abstain). Libertarians will scream at this – but it is a practical way to avoid the bi-partisanship which is wrecking most western democracies.
Also, why in this day and age is it so difficult to put in place strong digital ID and online voting? Again having to physically go to a voting place whilst not having much faith in the parties simply reinforces bipartisanship as the middle ground simply won’t show up.
I’ll take practical steps over doctrinal ones to solve our current democractic mess any time.
Mandatory voting simply gives credibility to the system in the sense the ruling class can say ‘if you don’t like things, vote harder’. However, things you care about are not necessarily even allowed to be voted on, hence the recent protests in Australia.
Trump is demented.
There is not nor was their election fraud ever been done by the citizenry. It is those in power that change the election rules or act illegally to subvert election outcomes.
Agree 100% ID and paper ballots. No exceptions.
Voter ID makes a ton of sense. As long as you provide all your voters with free ID, pro-actively. Otherwise it becomes a hurdle to vote and a way to exclude poor people, or even anyone if you make the process to order ID vague or arbitrary enough.
In countries like France, peoples basically need ids for everything. So peoples have them
I live in the Netherlands. Same here: ID is required to vote and not hard to get. My wife is American, so I have seen what it’s like there too.
right, but in this country they don’t. and to get them they need to go through some bureacratic process which will be controlled by Repiblicans.
it’s BS
People make mistakes, let ID lapse without realizing… a senior who stopped driving for example. i showed up to the airport with an expired passport. had to pay a bunch to get a new rushed one while my wife went ahead.
We already basically have it now with the new ‘Real ID’ requirement on all drivers licenses.
Those without a license can still get a special Real ID card from the state (fee is already waived for the poor so that’s not an argument).
In other words everything needed is already in place via Real ID.
If the president is going to “flood the zone” with so many obvious illegal EOs a special court needs to be setup to give a cursory review before it’s allowed to be issued. Otherwise, if the president gets turned down, then he can appeal up the chain until he proves it’s constitutional.
I saw on one of the political shows that apparently Putin suggested paper ballots to Trump at their meeting. Of course that’s one way to stuff ballot boxes with no other check in place. Voter ID is a good idea. This country is just too big to keep track of everyone. It would actually behove the democrats as they lost Florida due to some voter role manipulation courtesy of George’s younger brother. It’s time the US catch up with the rest of the civilized world.
But of course it’s completely up to the states unless Congress wants in. But, as voting is a constitutional privilege, any changes should carry the same weight as an amendment. Perhaps it could be posed as a referendum to voters in each state and with 67%, instead of the usual 75%, of states passing a change is made. My pipe dream.
But paper and electronic are needed as a check on each other. Using the internet is a ridiculous idea. Right now it’s just Trump causing more trouble where the dems are in a no win situation. But let’s hope DT doesn’t cause chaos before Election Day where he orders changes just when states are finalizing ballots. If it’s one thing we can be sure of though is he will try to cheat and he will try to sow chaos around election time anyway. Expect him to declare any loses as fraud and take action as necessary. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the nat’l guard placed at counting centers in big liberal cities declaring an emergency. It could get very ugly just as the gerrymandering is getting. The country is now literally being divided state by state. This is what happened before the civil war…
Only property owners with more assets than debt should be able to vote. No skin in the game, no vote.
So foreigners can vote then?
Does multiple properties get multiple votes? Larger properties more votes?
If you want skin in the game, the best way would be using tax returns. No tax paid, no vote. After all its your tax money that’s getting spent by the results of those votes.
Yep the ancient Rome way. Back then, the more you paid taxes, the more you had power. Rich peoples tried to be very generous as a result instead of evading taxes (but in order to control everything).
Except that’s not what he said at all.
We can’t have that. Everything I know about Democrat politicians is they all have at least 3 houses
No, only one vote for one US citizen that owns any real property and real assets must be more than all debts. No foreigners, no corporations and no deadbeats.
Right on.
If advocating only property owners can vote, what are your thoughts on a military draft for only property owners to fight the wars that monied interests and the rentier landed capitalists create.
I would argue that those with debt have much more skin in the game. Especially if the creditors would all of the sudden call the shots.
Think this is what Trump means when he yells for MAGA?
Going back in time to when only (propertied) slave-owners were allowed to vote?
well you democrats ought to know about slavery, you fought to maintain it.
Keep up; this conversation is about Trump and MAGA.
Not traditional conservative Republicans that so far, have not contributed much to Congressional ruling in 2025
I worked as a poll worker a long time ago. No ID was required and we just checked off names on a computer printout when people came to vote.
The precinct was very small and the possibility of someone trying to vote with someone else’s name seems remote based on my experience. Polling places are not where fraud is most likely to happen.
But that was over 20 years ago and the world is a different place now. Sad that it has come to requiring voter ID.
The integrity of the election system depends on honest people keeping watchful eyes on the whole process from start (voter registration) to finish (vote counting & reporting) so that fraud doesn’t occur.
yeah its sad but its needed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_in_May The miliary takeover of the US government has been done before as a book and a movie. I don’t believe that Trump has control of the military enough to take over as many people think.
Well he certainly doesn’t have control over the FBI, since they (or some element of the FBI) tried to kill him in Butler, PA last year. The CIA is also entirely rogue.
LOL! Loving those conspiracies!
Can I borrow your tinfoil hat?
i bet you’re loving the Netflix jessie smollett documentary.
Hes gonna use it to tie the election up in courts / call voter fraud/ use troops to keep the republicans in power. Or start a war some where. Pull a bibi
Republicans should wake up. Its moving to the point where there wont be an option.
I’m guessing Trump will be stationing the Natl Guard at polling places…that’ll be his next EO.
Like the Black Lives Matter groups at the polls for the Obama election?
Yet again, fiction is more popular nonfiction. BLM did not exist on November 6, 2012.
was actually black panthers in Philly but hey you obviously have Leftist Derangement Syndrome
I’d guess this is one of those 80/20 or 70/30 issues and Trump knows it won’t pass legal muster…..that’s not really the point. Rather I think he is using it as (another) wedge issue to show how far out of touch the Democrats are.
Like how the mayor of Minneapolis wanted to make sure people didn’t blame the entire trans-shooter community.
Australia has compulsory voting – Don’t vote you get fined.
Voter ID at every polling booth.
Everyone over 18 must register with the Australian Electoral commission. Name and address. ID given when registering. Your name ticked off at the polling booth. If you are away from your local electorate at voting time there’s mail in. Voting forms with your unique ID sent to wherever you are. There’s phone voting using a unique Electoral ID. No internet voting yet but I assume it’s coming.
Elections in Australia are now popularity contests based on who ever the MSM doesn’t character assassinate. Policy is mostly irrelevant. With compulsory voting there’s a good proportion of Donkey Votes.
Sounds like there’s not much difference between candidates (platform-wise).
What is the fine for not voting?
Slightly different fines per state – Generally $55
You must vote in Federal, State and local Council elections.
Elections are rarely about policies. They are generally about who has the better narrative and who can get the most negative ads to stick on their opponent.
It helps when the MSM has C.D.S. – Conservative Derangement syndrome.
The admin should’ve rolled something good about elections into their Big Pork Bill. Now they’re trying it via E.O.? This is dumb.
I don’t know who here bothers reading ZH comments, especially after ZH switched ~10 years ago to IMO a Murdoch-adjacent orientation. (Carries a lot of Epoch Times, Gatestone Institutes, and a couple of other “institutes”). But I do occasionally, to see which way the crowd leans. Most people there started bashing trump a few months ago. They’re sick of this shit too.
I expected a giggling moron like Kamala or Newsome to do dumb shit like this IF and ONLY IF they weren’t handled by (evil but somewhat competent) adults. I expected similarly disgraceful behavior from Trump but wasn’t expecting “amateur hour”. UFB. Who are his handlers? Do his donors approve of this?
Has everyone here ever listened to one of those 3-hour marathon Q&A sessions Putin gives? If you never listened to one of those, it’s a must. (Especially if you hate him.) The contrast between leadership teams is stunning.
How many of his voters (at their age, even with Cadillacs) can make it through the snow? So, more bureaucracy for an exemption to make voting possible. DOGE, my foot.
Between 6AM and 2PM most voters are boomers.
Trump is an idiot. But everyone already knew that. His days are numbered.
Whose days aren’t?
Some are sooner than others.
Trump is just the tool to get what part of the republican party has been working toward for years.
This is such a basic thing its hard to believe that:
a) anyone would ever oppose it
b) that it hasn’t been in place since the founding
c) that this is basic law in most places than vote across the world and American politicians don’t realize it or care till now.
At the time of the founders there was no ID or birth certificates. So how would they have voter ID requirements?
Only white men could vote back then, so they didn’t have any problems.
Not true, the vast majority of white men couldn’t vote either. Only white men who owned large properties could vote.
They all knew each other.
I used to be against voter ID years ago but it was due to my grandmother who lived until she was 104 and voted until her late 90s. She never had a driver’s license or state ID. She had no birth certificate just a family Bible with her name and date of birth hand written in that Bible. She’s been dead 25 years now and I suspect most from that generation are dead and gone. She voted in Waterloo GA precinct that had about 50 people and the workers at precinct knew my grandmother from Church and community.
At this point most people have birth certificates and home births are very rare so show your ID.
As far as voting we have the technology to make voting convenient and easily accessible to every citizen. Everyone should be automatically registered to vote at age 18 and voter rolls updated annually to account deaths and newly turned age 18 citizens and people who moved. There’s no reason to make voting hard. I approve of mail-in voting. I traveled for years working with our military and often only got home every 3 months and had no choice but to vote absentee ballot.
Junk food is easy, quick, cheap and accessible. Vote From Home is junk.
Nonsense. Voting by mail works fine, I’ve done it for decades. This EO is designed to reduce the number of voters.
Biden stole the 2020 election. Trump is trying to fix the system, to prevent frauds from happening again.
Atlanta and Lancaster PA were the epicenters. A former PA gov was boasting about it: we can fix it, but there will be no proof !
The interesting thing about Democrats is they’re smart enough to throw the election to Biden in 2020, but too dumb to take the Senate and House by large margins. And obviously too dumb to throw it to Harris in 2024.
Michael is not too bright…
But he has a nice tinfoil hat!
>
So you mean to tell me biden and the dems stole the election. They were so smooth and good at it that even high power lawyers standing in front of a judge could not so any proof. Wow i think i need to vote dem from bow on.
No case was ever heard on the merits. All thrown out for supposed lack of standing (when the real reason was they didn’t want the responsibility). Alito and Thomas were the only ones with the balls to want to hear the arguments and evidence. Roberts pissed his pants just like he did when he was forced to re-write his Obamacare decision right before it was issued. There was a John Roberts on the Epstein flight log.
Bonkers.
Those who can get off work.
Anyone who really wants to vote will find a way to get the ID required to vote. Anyone too lazy to do so doesn’t really want to vote.
>> Anyone too lazy to do so doesn’t really want to vote.
Or they lack enough mental capability. Either way, agree they have no business voting.
(Not like I suggest any explicit IQ or other kind of test. But, to the extent this one is a “test”, they can pass it with help. And it’s an extremely low bar.)
Yeah, the dead voters.
Mish, asking you an honest question here. Where exactly do you personally see this all going with the executive order abuse? It’s not really a sustainable thing to have the court suspending every attempt at dictatorship from the oval office, and things seem to be coming to a head. Where does this leave us economically when it does?
This is one thing that’s left me stumped since for all the talk, nobody seems to want to talk about the situation if we lose the tiny amount of function we have in government. Massive flight of capital?
Thanks for the great question.
My short answer is this speeds up the inevitable currency crisis. But I still have no timing.
I may do a post on this
I’m kind of expecting that much. I mean, it would be very hard to trade much in the way of dollars if violence breaks out. That leaves a lot of countries in the lurch with huge stocks of currency of unknown value.
Well our debt spending has probably propped up the world to some degree. When we go down we will probably sink the world economy as a whole.
Agree with the fact that our currency is stronger because it is the “Reserve Currency”. The dollar is the most trusted currency in the world and our banking system owns the quoting system for its value.
Therefore it is in very few peoples interest in having it crater.
Of course Trump wants to crater its value as a function of trade. Therefore he discredits our nation as being run by a TACO fool that wants to be our dictator.
The 100Y dems uniparty dictatorship is gone.
A.k.a. the American Century. Greatest bloom of prosperity and freedom in human history. You don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone.
> Greatest bloom of prosperity and freedom in human history
That honor goes to China’s CPC for freeing their people of European-American-Japanese occupation and then raising 800m people out of poverty.
Prosperity yes, freedom no. So it’s definitely not China since they only qualify for half (and even that’s arguable).
Eliminating foreign occupation and gaining independence is a huge improvement in freedom for the local population. China did that within this past century.
It took USA from 1770’s to the 1970’s to reach the high-water mark that Hunter S Thompson referred to. It took two centuries to eliminate slavery, grant women voting rights, eliminate color lines, and recognize rights like privacy that we now take for granted.
What’s the magnitude of improvement in freedom during China’s first century compared to USA’s first century? Or China’s first versus USA’s second? The magnitudes look similar to me.
For me, the tie-breaker is the economic side. USA economic success stemmed from Europe destroying its industrial base and demographics twice. How the f did China do it, with 800m people no less? I share Kevin Walmsley’s amazement on this.
I’d be less inclined to grant a nod to the CPC for this if it were not for blogs like Mish who has at times shared enough Fed data showing real wages for the bottom half have been stuck since 1970 — despite all the tech progress that should be making people’s lives richer.
China did it by exporting to the Western World. If there was no ready market there would have been no industrial revolution in China. The *exact* same miracle happened in Japan after WWII when they also exported their way to success in the 70’s and 80s. So I have no idea why Walmsley is so amazed by this.
Sign the executive orders with a Spirograph.
Or imitation of an underage girls pubes…
Well with the Most EO”s by a President, being a total of 3,721, Trump at 220 doesn’t seem too bad at all.
In Fact, Obama, Wilson, Roosevelt, Bush, Clinton, Carter, Johnson and so many more are ahead of Him, I would say He has His work cut out for Himself to break any of these records…
A few He may, but only due to the proven mess that He was handed over.
Where is it going??
It will transition from a Republic to an Empire.
Think Sulla and the dictators 2 years terms. At least they could do anything to said dictator once he stepped down.
History may not repeat but it rhymes — and everything with the ascendancy of the Presidency (and courts) over the legislative branch sure remind of the 60 BC in Rome
The United Banana Empire of America?
It’s a no-brainer.
Paper ballots vs electronic voting machines: paper ballots are more secure and auditable. Electronic machines can malfunction or hacked. No mailed paper ballots or voting without ID reduce fraud. It’s Trump’s reps vs Josh Shapiro and other swing states. It’s about showing up, standing in lines vs vote from home.
Our currency system is fundamentally digital. So too every form of tracking and accounting in the world. For decades. It is possible to have secure databases and identification, without having granny produce her faded original birth cert on-site.
Paper ballots? That’s how Putin cheats by stuffing boxes. You need an electronic copy as well as most polling places have now.
President Trump’s post did not say “No Paper Ballots” as your headline incorrectly states. He said just the opposite. Read it and report it correctly.
“Constitutionally, Trump should ask Congress for changes. But that would take 60 votes and he does not have them.”
How much longer can the filibuster hang on?
Until the Dems take the senate.
I think everyone knows where I stand on this one. For those who don’t, MAGA!
I am not MAGA. I like what Trump is doing. There are more like me, but they are afraid to talk or answer pollsters. They are Trump’s deep reservoirs.
So you’re not Make America Great Again?
That seems odd given that MAGA will live on beyond Trump.
No worries.
The silent majority
Mish, is the posting title goofed? “no” paper ballots. “No” should be “only” or not there. Or maybe I’m just reading it wrong. 🙂
Yes – Fixed.
I started saying it a different way and ended up with an incorrect title
@Mish,
Trump explicitly says “Use paper ballots only”, not no paper ballots. He says “no mail in ballots”.
An Idea whose time is way overdue.
If you need an ID for security purposes to prove who you are to get on an airplane and many other things then why not to Vote which is the most important thing a Citizen can do. Its time to secure the right to Vote for only U.S. Citizens.
Hats off to Trump because the Congress hasn’t been able to get off its Ass in more than 200 years to make this happen !
Thank you
NO, the most important thing a Citizen SHOULD and CAN DO is to string up Congress.
Hard disagree. If I showed ID when I originally registered to vote and haven’t changed my address, then I’m a legal voter and should be able to vote by mail. I shouldn’t need to go wait in line to vote. This is a strategy to suppress voting.
Hard disagree. The point is that not requiring ID at the time of voting and allowing mail in ballots opens up voting to lots of opportunities for illegal activity.
The same can be said for no ID / mail in ballots. It’s being allowed to continue to give rise to fraud opportunities.
Do your state not have early voting? Mine does, and I’m typically in & out in 5 minutes with no waiting. If you don’t, then you might want to ask your legislature why.
In general, for residents:
France banned mail-in voting in 1975 – due to fraud
Belgium banned mail-in voting in 2018 – due to fraud
Sweden does not permit mail-in voting.
Italy does not permit mail-in voting.
Washington State requires mail-in ballots. For fraud.
Legit!
Colorado has mail in ballots and multiple safeguards against fraud. You have to provide proof of citizenship in order to first register to vote in the state. Drop boxes are outside all polling places and are video and personnel secured. Mailed votes must be postmarked by a specific date to be counted. You can vote in person if you want. If there is suspicion of required signature validation of your signature on file, you are notified and your vote is not counted until the issue is resolved…p.s.- Trump recently voted by mail…look it up. Good luck trying to vote here if you are not legal and registered.
He also imposed a mandatory death penalty for murderers in DC and it’s illegal.
Michael, I had a Cousin murdered with a buck knife. That cousin was my favorite relative back in Illinois.
He is now coming up for release after 32 years behind bars. Now, Invite him over and see how YOU FEEL when someone you loved IS DEAD by some scumbag’s hands.
The death penalty is illegal in DC. DC isn’t a state. It’s under federal mandate. Lives of the victims matter more than lives of murderers. Trump wants a mandatory death sentence in DC. That why I like him. I am 100% for it. Kill 2/3 murderers out of 350 million people and the murder rate will drop. Hang them in a public sq instead of keeping them for 32 years.
Appeals should also be limited such that all must be completed in a statutory one year or less time frame.
Swift justice is important!
Sorry to hear that DH.
Glad to see that taco has the nation’s priorities under control.