Trump Signs Executive Order Requiring Proof of Citizenship to Vote in Elections

President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday that will require proof of U.S. citizenship on election forms, in an aggressive push to catch and combat voter fraud, which is exceedingly rare but constantly cited by Mr. Trump as a reason he lost the 2020 election.

The order calls for the Election Assistance Commission to require people to show government-issued proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, and directs state or local officials to record and verify the information. It also seeks to require states to count ballots by Election Day.

Administration officials, who cast the order as one of the most far-reaching in American history related to elections, cited cracking down on immigrants illegally on voter rolls as one of the order’s main goals, amplifying Mr. Trump’s longstanding grievances about election integrity. He has falsely claimed that illegal votes contributed to his losing the 2020 election and the popular vote in 2016.

Like many of Mr. Trump’s orders, this one is likely to face legal challenges for executive overreach.

Rick Hasen, a political science professor and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law, said that Mr. Trump had no authority to dictate how states ran their elections, such as requiring them to count their ballots by Election Day.

Mr. Hasen added that Mr. Trump’s exertion of power over the commission — which was created by legislation passed in Congress — would need to be tested in court, since what he is ordering them to do is “either contrary to law or at best disputed.”