U.S. President Donald Trump is floating declaring a "National Emergency" ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections to change election rules.
In Aug. last year at the White House, President Trump raised objections to mail voting when he met with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. At the time, he said, "The best lawyers in the United States are now drafting an executive order to end mail voting." Six months later, in Feb. this year, a draft executive order on elections, based on the U.S. National Emergencies Act and written by conservatives including attorney Cleta Mitchell, circulated around the White House. Trump drew a line then, saying he had "never heard of it."
But even after Trump himself denied it, talk within the Republican camp continued about the possibility of declaring an election-related executive order under the National Emergencies Act. Steve Bannon, Trump's longtime aide, said on his podcast on the 29th of last month, "Keep the last week of August open. It's coming," signaling a national emergency declaration.
Trump also spoke again on the 10th of this month (local time) on the conservative outlet Real America's Voice about whether he would declare a national emergency. When host Wayne Allyn Root urged him to define the election as a national security emergency and push through voter ID and mail voting limits without a Senate vote, Trump said, "Stranger things have happened," leaving the door open. The White House still is not denying the possibility.
The election rules Trump is trying to change, even by invoking a national emergency, fall into three broad categories. According to the draft executive order on elections, voters must prove citizenship when registering, and at polling places they must present a photo ID. Those allowed to request mail ballots would be limited to people with special reasons such as illness, disability, or military service.
All three are procedures that are hardly disputed in Korea. In Korea, as long as you are on the resident registry, your name is automatically placed on the voter rolls for elections, and polling places check IDs. The United States is different. Voters must apply directly to their state election authorities to be placed on the rolls. Many states do not separately verify citizenship in that process. Some states do not require a photo ID.
Trump asked Congress to make these measures law under the pretext of preventing election fraud, but the bill stalled in the Senate due to Democratic opposition. In March this year, a court even blocked an executive order that Trump himself signed. Declaring a national emergency is the next step the Trump administration is considering.
Of the three demands, the one Trump is pushing hardest is mail voting. Mail voting is a method in which voters do not go to polling places but send their ballots by mail. In the 2024 presidential election, 30.3% of 158 million votes were cast by mail. Around the 2020 election, when mail voting surged due to COVID-19, Trump repeatedly argued that the method is vulnerable to fraud and favors Democrats. After losing to Joe Biden, he repeatedly emphasized, "I lost because of a rigged election."
In the United States, elections are not run by the White House or the federal government. There is no body like Korea's National Election Commission that manages nationwide elections under a single set of rules. Election authorities in 50 states and more than 3,000 counties divide up responsibilities for voter registration, polling place operations, early and mail voting, and counting. Early voting periods and ID requirements also differ by state.
Article I, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution provides that the times, places and manner of holding elections for the Senate and House shall be prescribed by the state legislatures, and that Congress may make or alter such regulations. It does not mention any authority the president can exercise regarding elections. Rick Hasen, a UCLA School of Law professor, wrote on his election law blog on the 11th of this month that "the president has no role in administering elections."
The national emergency that Trump's side mentions differs in nature from Korea's martial law. The U.S. National Emergencies Act, enacted in 1976, does not grant special powers simply because the president declares a national emergency. The president can only draw, in a limited way, on emergency powers that Congress has pre-authorized in individual statutes.
The Brennan Center at New York University School of Law has tallied 137 statutory authorities a president can use after declaring a national emergency. These include measures to sanction foreign actors interfering in elections or to expand investigations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). However, there is no authority to cancel an election or overturn results. There is also no basis to postpone election day or seize voting machines managed by state governments.
Instead, Trump can move federal agencies under his command to exert influence over voting. Through Executive Order 14399, which he signed on Mar. 31, Trump directed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to create a list of U.S. citizens. Specifically, it ordered compiling federal data, including from the Social Security Administration, to create state-by-state lists and send them to each state's election authorities 60 days before the election. State Governments must use these lists to filter noncitizens from voter rolls.
Delivery of mail ballots was entrusted entirely to the federal agency U.S. Postal Service (USPS). In the same executive order, Trump instructed USPS not to deliver ballots to people not on the DHS list. Even if a state government wants to send ballots to voters, the post office would be the chokepoint.
California and 22 other states plus Washington, D.C., filed suit, arguing the president exceeded constitutional authority. Then, in late June, among the 23 plaintiff states, the federal district court in Massachusetts became the first to block implementation of the executive order, saying the president intruded on powers the Constitution assigns to the states and Congress.
However, on the 24th, the U.S. Supreme Court, the higher court over the federal district court in Massachusetts, reversed that decision 6-3 after two months, giving the Trump administration some breathing room. The Supreme Court saw Trump not as ordering State Governments to do something, but as issuing proper directives to federal agencies under his command.
Experts warned that if actual voting begins while the administration and State Governments clash over voter eligibility and mail voting procedures and lawsuits continue, voter confusion and distrust in the election results will grow. Some also said the 2026 midterms will be a testing ground for how far the administration can go into the realm of elections, which had not been given to a U.S. president. Aria Branch, an attorney at Elias Law Group, told the Guardian on the 23rd that "Trump's team is trying to turn elections into the administrative business of federal agencies."