It's March 31st. This is New York News Today, driven by AI. President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday, pushing states to tighten mail-in voting rules and ordering his team to build a list of confirmed U.S. citizens eligible to vote in every state.
The order tasked the new Homeland Security Secretary with pulling data from the Social Security Administration to make that list. It also limits the Postal Service to sending absentee ballots only to folks on the approved list with just one envelope per ballot. States that push back could lose federal funding. Democrats and election experts are firing back hard, calling it unconstitutional since states run elections, not the president.
Legal challenges are already in the works, and it's unclear how this hits ongoing midterm primaries. Trump's move stems from his long gripe with mail-in voting, which he calls full of cheating, though proven non-citizen cases are super rare, about one, hundreds since 2000. He's been urging Congress for the save act on citizenship proof, but no luck so far. Meanwhile, the Justice Department is suing states like California and Pennsylvania for not handing over voter rolls amid bigger fights over data.
Sharing. As courts sort this out, election rules stay in flux heading into midterms.