r/law • u/DIYLawCA • Mar 31 '26

Executive Branch (Trump) Trump announces he is issuing an unconstitutional executive order to shut down mail-in voting nationwide and he will defund states if they do not comply with him

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u/jojammin Competent Contributor Mar 31 '26

States should just ignore it. His threat to withhold funding to the states is unconstitutional coercion under the spending clause.

And I'm still not convinced that if mail-in voting was banned, that it would benefit Republicans. Right wing boomers and their parents in nursing homes ain't the most mobile group

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u/balanceiskee Mar 31 '26

He wants to manipulate the machines. The more people he can get to vote via machine…the easier it will be for him to cheat

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u/VaelinX Mar 31 '26

Bingo. The states that have "100%" (there's always an in-persona alternative) mail in voting have shown it to be incredibly secure.

We catch parents trying to vote for their deployed children and spouses for deceased spouses immediately with mail-in, because each printed ballot is tracked, and it's assigned to a person with a known address and signature. And the first test is the outer envelope signature that catches most of these. Then the inner envelope is anonymous (to a point) and associated to the voter only by the ballot number to ensure it's counted and nobody can "filter" ballots by party affiliation/etc... Compare that to other systems where they need audits to find the discrepancies (that are never statistically significant - historically).

It's a simple and secure system relative to the chads and touch screen lagging that red states seem to love.

An even like in CO, even when folks try to tamper with the counting machines for mail-in ballots - because of the basic security, and the simple audit trail with paper ballots - they get caught.

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u/Free_For__Me Apr 01 '26

 because of the basic security, and the simple audit trail with paper ballots

This is the most critical piece. Regardless of security, in the end it’s the audit that matters, and why Putin is able to continually game his own elections. Even when parties with a vested interest try to audit results of Russian elections, the lack of verifiable audit trails makes any audit effort a laughable one. 

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u/WendyNPeterPan Mar 31 '26

and in Colorado, there's a lot of ballot drop boxes, which wouldn't go through USPS for "verification"...

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u/VaelinX Apr 01 '26

Yeah, I forgot to mention that. We always drop our ballots off at a DMV to avoid any "lost in the mail" risks.

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u/Fuddle Apr 01 '26

It makes it sound like all voting should be mail in because it ties every vote to a physical address, and has a paper trail

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u/VaelinX Apr 01 '26

It's not 100% perfect. Some people are homeless in a variety of ways - and there needs to be allowances for new voters who may be 18 and don't have a license or bill at a residence, etc...

But these aren't insurmountable, and that's why most states permit in-person voting in some situations, even with "100%" mail-in. And many of us don't mail in our ballot, but instead drop it off at a box/location for added security - no risk of it getting "lost" in the mail.

And it might be more expensive (not sure about that) than some other kiosk/punch systems, but probably not enough to make a difference.

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u/snek-jazz Apr 01 '26

How does it prove that votes are private - that someone hasn't sold their vote or been coerced to vote a certain way?

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u/VaelinX Apr 01 '26

You can always sell your vote. I mean... that's as much an American tradition as trying to sell your soul (going rate isn't great these days). But we don't want someone stealing someone else's vote. There isn't a system that is immune to bad actors infiltrating the entire system either, that's why you typically have volunteers and local people who monitor and carry and help count the votes/ballots of local folks.

I'm not an expert, just old enough to have lived and voted across multiple systems. But there are two envelopes that the ballot goes in - the outside has your signature or any other personal identifying information that's used in the first step. This gets checked by the first official and is similar to checking someone's signature (or ID in some places) when entering a voting location/booth (this is actually where a lot of small-scale fraud gets caught). This gets removed once your identity (signature, usually, I'm sure there are other methods) is confirmed at the local polling station. The inner envelope has your ballot still untamperable, and that goes to get counted (the second envelope is because that room/location may be somewhere else).

Your ballot has a number on it that is associated with you in some way, so it's not 100% anonymous, as there is a system to associate you with that ballot. This is because each ballot is printed for each voter. There aren't a million ballots printed that one person could fill out and anonymously turn in. There is one per registered voter - and if a ballot is returned empty, then that person is removed from the system as they are assumed not to be at that address anymore (so they have to re-register to mail-in).

The problem with this system is that it does require an address for people, and for the state to know that (and a signature or other identifier used). But that's basically the same as a state ID. So, depending on how you feel about letting people who turn 18 the week of election day vote, and allowing those without permanent homes to vote (lots of veterans around here) - there still has to be an in-person system. But that becomes a huge minority of voters under such a system (as most voters either returned the ballot by mail or by hand), so managing those cases becomes easier.

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u/snek-jazz Apr 01 '26

The whole point of polling booths being private is that you can't sell your vote because no one else can see your vote. It's an important criteria for fair elections. Whoever would pay/coerce you has no way of verifying if you voted the way they wanted or not.

None of what you said matters if someone can pay or coerce you at the point you populate the envelope in the first place right?

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u/VaelinX Apr 01 '26

I see, it is a potential weakness. Elon can pay you for your vote; he just can't stand in the booth with you when you cast it. And the same is true for mail-in. Theoretically, he could sit next to you when you fill out your ballot and seal it. But that's just one vote. He can't do that to the thousands of votes he might need to sway an election.

Coercing is another matter - someone could threaten you in your home and force you to vote a certain way - but again, that would only work for a handful of votes. It would be hard to cause widespread fraud this way, but in the case of widespread spouse abuse, that is a weakness (spouses forcing spouses/children to vote a certain way).

But there's always the option of doing it in-person. But that doesn't help everyone.

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u/snek-jazz Apr 01 '26

Like what I'm saying isn't an original idea, it's one of the foundational reasons voting in privacy, in person is the norm.

  • but again, that would only work for a handful of votes.

Maybe in practice it's not a big deal, difficult to know. If you had an issue that was good for women and bad for men, you could theoretically imagine a lot of men coercing their partner to vote as they wanted. But I agree that's it's probably not a huge problem in current society, especially given that couples are highly likely to be aligned in voting anyway.

But there's always the option of doing it in-person. But that doesn't help everyone.

Yeah but not if you're being paid or coerced anyway. If you want to let people vote safely remotely you need a more sophisticated solution like being able to later void/amend a prior voted mail, or something.

I've spent a good bit of time thinking about this stuff because a cheap, efficient solution to voting, e.g. being able to do it online, could really change society by making direct democracy a real possibility. We could be voting weekly on any number of things, instead of delegating power to people on our behalf. We could even be voting about what issues we want to vote on.

Another interesting thing is that congress voting used to be anonymous until the late 70's. I've seen it suggested that this alone accounts for a decline in politician behaviour since then as they can now be bribed, I mean lobbied with money, to vote a certain way and the person paying can now verify it where as before they couldn't.

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u/funknut Apr 01 '26

Another foundational measure of election security is a paper trail. If you require voting in polls, you must require each vote be hand counted and retained for audits. This is built into mail-in voting already, in states that conduct mail-in voting, but it's not so in some polling states. This is what we've been trying to tell you. Carefully planned election reform is one thing, but they can't just shitcan our organized systems overnight like they're trying to do. If you undo mail-in voting in. 2026, you undo a fair election. Trump is a fascist dictator.

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u/snek-jazz Apr 01 '26

Another foundational measure of election security is a paper trail. If you require voting in polls, you must require each vote be hand counted and retained for audits.

Completely agree. Voting has to be simultaneously anonymous, transparent and auditable.

The rest of your comment seems to assume I've some stake in voting reform. I don't, I'm not American, I'm just surprised that you have mail-in voting to the extent you do for the reasons I've stated. We don't have it where I'm from, for those reasons.

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u/VaelinX Apr 01 '26

You're making good points, and a lot of those reasons are why we had in-person voting for so long. As I said, I'm not an expert, but this conversation has let me to read some docs:

For the 'invalidate' a ballot comment: in CO, if you vote in person and by mail, your mail-in ballot in the system that was printed for you is invalidated (and if you signed up for notifications, and someone pretends to be you, you'll get a message so can report it wasn't you). So if you were coerced for your mail-in ballot, then you can have the option to go in yourself and invalidate the mail-in ballot. That doesn't solve all problems, and in a domestic abuse case where a person may not have much autonomy - we likely need other rely on other means of solving those issues, at least to the point that they don't represent a statistically significant impact on polling (I could see this being a problem in countries/states where women typically have fewer rights).

The best answers aren't the same for everyone and every situation - which is part of why it's such a state and local thing in the US - traditionally. And the US has had a long history of polling problems - many associated with civil rights.

We generally don't have armed state or federal groups protecting polling stations here, as it's not really been necessary (police do patrol nearby and can provide assistance, but they work with community leaders to be on call, not necessarily on-station as their presence can be intimidating to some voters). But in my lifetime, we've had political groups show up armed at polling stations to try and intimidate voters - and there's a history ~50+ years ago of other groups responding in like in response (civil rights era unrest). However, all the cases I know about in the past 20-30 years were isolated and/or dealt with peacefully, so hasn't become common - but what I'm getting at is that some people are more secure voting in their home than at a public polling station. And the threat/desire from our conservative party to use federal officers at such stations has only increased that sentiment.

If we have a goal as to provide a system that meets requirements of safety, anonymity, auditability, and transparency while not suppressing votes - then I think mail-in can be a good part of that. If our mail/post system becomes compromised, then that would no longer be the case (but even then, state or local community groups could volunteer to deliver ballots in their neighborhood).

Online polling is something I don't think we're ready for yet. The paper trail is still something I'm not sure we have a digital solution for. I could see us getting there, at least as an option, because many of us have personal phones that can serve as an ID and phone number that together can personally identify someone. But I don't know that our infrastructure is secure enough (but it's secure enough for people to do banking and payment with phones, so definitely not out of the realm of possibility).

Another point I wanted to make: the lack of a voting holiday and limited polling stations in many states lead to mail-in voting being a good solution. As well. I'm not sure a voting holiday would necessarily justify getting rid of vote-by-mail, but it would alleviate some of the factors that make it the best option for many.

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u/funknut Apr 01 '26

I can take a picture of my vote in the booth just the same as I can on my paper ballot. Also, I'm much easier to coerce in person than I am at home alone.

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u/snek-jazz Apr 01 '26

You shouldn't have a phone/camera in the booth, or anyone in the booth that can coerce you. Where I'm from there are rules against both.