In an expert brief published on August 3, 2025, the Brennan Center for Justice’s Jasleen Singh outlines the Trump Administration’s unprecedented actions to undermine the upcoming and future elections. She outlines four main areas. In this first post, we will outline the first area — attempting to rewrite rules to take control over states’ role to establish election rules.
As outlined in the United States Constitution, states establish the rules for running elections. The sole role of the executive branch is to ensure that laws are followed. It has no power to write those rules. And yet, in March of this year, President Trump issued an executive order attempting to rewrite election rules in the states. Singh’s brief explains three areas of focus in the executive order to attempt to rewrite election rules.
The first area of focus attempts to exert pressure on the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission (EAC) whose purpose is to assist states with election administration. The executive order attempts to direct the EAC to mandate that anyone attempting to register to vote using the federal voter registration form provide a passport or similar document proving his/her citizenship. The Brennan Center estimates that this could disenfranchise more than twenty-one million American citizens who do not have a birth certificate or passport readily available. This order was challenged in five lawsuits across the country. Stay tuned.
The second area also focuses on the EAC. It demands the EAC amend its guidelines to rescind previous certifications of voting systems that were based on earlier requirements and possibly re-certify systems that comply with the new standards in the executive order. While eleven states and the District of Columbia require their voting systems be certified, most other states use voting systems that have been certified. Currently, only one system complies with the new guidelines. This system was only certified on July 7. For states to replace their current voting systems could cost billions of dollars while the federal government continues to cut funding for states to run their elections. In addition, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has already asked election officials in at least one state to provide DHS access to their voting equipment. This practice could undermine voters’ confidence in the elections process and give election deniers pretext for challenging future elections. Two states have already filed suits challenging Trump’s illegal order to amend voting systems. In the meantime, the EAC has drafted guidelines based on the executive order, but these new guidelines must pass through several procedures before they can be enacted.
Third, the order directs the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and DHS to collect voter files and other records kept by election officials in the states, including voter list maintenance records. These two agencies have already requested this information from at least nine states, and at least two states have already complied. The order also demands that states have access to federal citizenship data for voter list maintenance. There are at least two areas of concern here. In addition to DOGE’s history of mishandling sensitive information, the administration could use voter file access to claim fraud and undermine the public’s trust of elections. Mishandling of voter file data also exposes U.S. elections to both political and foreign interference. Providing voter information to the federal government requires the consent of the voters in many states, while other state laws require the information be redacted.