Trump now threatens to bypass Congress and unilaterally rewrite election rules

The U.S. Constitution states that states will dictate “the times, places, and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof.” Donald Trump has a plan to stop that — one he believes will give him a leg up in the upcoming midterm elections.

Trump took to his controversial Truth Social account to say he is willing to do everything he can to ensure voters show identification at voting booths. He wrote, “If we can’t get it through Congress, there are Legal reasons why this SCAM is not permitted. I will be presenting them shortly, in the form of an Executive Order.” In another post, the president added, “There will be Voter I.D. for the Midterm Elections, whether approved by Congress or not!”

The president has been facing strong criticism for his calls to “take over” elections — a move that would go beyond what his powers normally permit. Trump has been pushing Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would overhaul how elections are conducted in the U.S. by drastically limiting the mail-in ballot option and adding a requirement for voters to show photo ID.

On Feb. 11, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the SAVE America Act. The bill would also require states to submit their voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security to verify whether anyone listed is a non-citizen. If the bill passes the Senate, election officials who register a voter without first obtaining the required proof could face federal criminal charges.

Trump says that if the Senate fails to pass the bill, he will simply issue a new executive order to make sure he gets his way. NBC reports that a law professor at Stanford University is highly skeptical that Trump would be able to pull that off. Prof. Nate Persily said, “The Constitution is clear on this. There are a lot of things where it’s ambiguous, but it doesn’t give unilateral regulatory authority over elections to the president.”

This is not the first time Trump has attempted to bypass Congress to change the nation’s voting laws. In March 2025, he issued an executive order requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote and imposing a deadline on mail-in ballots. That order was met with a permanent injunction from a federal judge, who ruled that a sitting president does not have the authority to unilaterally upend election procedures as they see fit.

This comes at a time when even GOP insiders like Sen. Ted Cruz are forecasting a brutal “bloodbath” in the upcoming midterms. The timing of these attempted Trump initiatives is therefore not surprising. If he loses control of Congress and the Senate, it is very unlikely he would have an easy time passing some of the more controversial parts of his agenda.

Even if Trump does go ahead and issue an executive order to enforce legislation that has not passed the legislative branch, the judicial branch has already set a precedent that it will not allow that to happen. After all, these checks and balances exist precisely because of the possibility of an individual who insists on acting unilaterally.