President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order Tuesday targeting mail-in voting and escalating his long-running effort to restrict voting access ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

“Cheating on mail-in voting is legendary. It’s horrible,” Trump said while signing the order. “Democrats want to use it for cheating.”

Election experts immediately said the order would be rejected by the courts. One told Democracy Docket it’s “unconstitutional on its face.”

Still, the order marks the most aggressive federal action yet in Trump’s campaign against mail-in voting, which he has repeatedly attacked with false claims of widespread fraud.

Despite those claims, election officials across the country — including Republicans — have consistently found mail-in voting to be secure and reliable. Trump himself has voted by mail in recent elections.

The order directs the Department of Homeland Security to work with the Social Security Administration to create lists of verified U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state. It also instructs the U.S. Postal Service to only send absentee ballots to voters on approved lists and mandates the use of secure ballot envelopes with unique barcodes for tracking. 

States would receive updated mail voter lists at least 60 days before federal elections, while the attorney general is directed to prioritize investigations into cases involving ballots sent to ineligible voters.

States that do not comply with the new requirements could face a loss of federal funding. 

Tuesday’s action also builds on a pattern of executive overreach that has already faced significant resistance in the courts.

Previous Trump executive orders attempting to impose nationwide election rules — including proof-of-citizenship requirements and federal control over voter registration processes — were blocked by federal courts, which ruled that the president cannot unilaterally rewrite election law.

“I don’t know how it can be challenged. They’ll probably challenge it. You may find a rogue judge,” Trump added. “A lot of rogue judges. Very bad, bad people. A lot of bad judges.”

Under the Constitution, states run elections and only Congress can set national standards.

“This is a massive and unconstitutional voter suppression effort aimed at giving Trump the power to create a list of who is allowed to vote by mail,” Marc Elias, founder of Democracy Docket, said Tuesday. “We know where this will go — the targeting of Democrats for mass disenfranchisement. We will sue and we will win.”

Legal challenges to the new order are expected swiftly.

“It’s obvious the president didn’t learn anything from his first failed executive order,” David Becker, a leading election law expert, told Democracy Docket. “This is unconstitutional on its face. The Constitution clearly gives the president no power over elections.”

Becker said he expects courts to move quickly to block the order, as they did with earlier attempts.

“I expect that this will be blocked by multiple federal courts in a very short period of time and have no legal effect whatsoever,” he said.

He also pointed to contradictions between the administration’s recent legal arguments and the apparent scope of the new order, particularly around the creation of a national voter list.

“After the Department of Justice has been telling courts they’re not creating a national voter list, this appears to confirm exactly what courts were concerned about,” Becker said.

Jim Saksa contributed to this reporting.