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President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday purporting to place new federal controls on voting by mail in states such as California, repeating his long-held but unsubstantiated claim that mail-in ballots are a source of widespread fraud in U.S. elections.

California leaders immediately responded with promises to fight the order in court. They said mail ballots are a safe and secure method for voting relied on by millions of Californians, that Trump’s order infringes on the state’s constitutional right to administer elections as it sees fit, and that it amounts to an “illegal power grab” ahead of midterm elections in which his party is poised to suffer substantial losses.

The order directs the United States Postal Service to take control of mail balloting by designing new envelopes with special bar codes that will allow the federal government to ensure that such ballots go out only to eligible voters, and that only eligible voters return such ballots.

It requires states to submit to the USPS process if they plan to use the federal mail system for sending or receiving ballots, and to submit to the USPS lists of eligible voters in advance of such ballots passing through the mail system.

It also requires the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the Social Security Administration to “compile and transmit to the chief election official of each State a list of individuals confirmed to be United States citizens who will be above the age of 18 at the time of an upcoming Federal election and who maintain a residence in the subject State.”

Those lists will be drawn from federal citizenship and naturalization records, Social Security records and “other relevant Federal databases,” and the USPS will be barred from transmitting ballots that do not match those lists, the order says.

“Secure ballot envelope identifiers provide a reliable, auditable mechanism to enforce Federal law without unduly burdening or infringing on the rights of eligible voters,” the order reads. “Unique ballot envelope identifiers, such as bar codes, enable confirmation that only citizens receive and cast ballots, reducing the risk of fraud and protecting the integrity of Federal elections.”

Trump — who recently voted by mail himself in Florida — framed the order as a solution to “massive cheating” in U.S. elections currently, which he did not back up with evidence.

“The cheating on mail-in voting is legendary. It’s horrible what’s going on,” Trump said.

“He’s going to make sure that mail-in ballots are safe secure and accurate,” said Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who appeared alongside Trump and whose agency the order requires to be involved in the coordination of the new voting measures.

California officials blasted the president for attacking and undermining election integrity, rather than shoring it up, and said they would fight the order from taking effect.

“President Trump’s Executive Order marks a dangerous and unprecedented escalation in his ongoing attacks on our elections. The power to regulate elections belongs to the States and to Congress — he has no role to play. We blocked his previous Executive Order on elections in court, and we are prepared to stop him again,” said California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta.

“The reality is that President Trump and Congressional Republicans see the writing on the wall — that they are likely to lose in the upcoming midterms — and they are pushing to make it harder for people to vote,” Bonta added. “We won’t stand idly by.”

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), in a statement to The Times, said Trump’s actions were “a clear and present threat to our democracy,” that he will “use every tool I can to stop him,” and that he expects “immediate legal challenges in order to protect our free and fair elections.”

“Instead of focusing on lowering the cost of energy, groceries, and health care, Donald Trump is desperately attempting to take over and rig our elections and avoid accountability in November. This executive order is a blatant, unconstitutional abuse of power,” said Padilla, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration.

“The President and the Department of Homeland Security have no authority to commandeer federal elections or direct the independent Postal Service to undermine mail and absentee voting that nearly 50 million Americans relied on in 2024,” he said. “A decade of lies about election fraud does not change the Constitution.”

“In the middle of an unauthorized war abroad and an escalating authoritarian crackdown by ICE here at home, Trump is attempting another illegal power grab,” Padilla said.

A vast majority of Californians vote by mail. In the state’s 2025 special election on Proposition 50, the state’s mid-decade redistricting measure, nearly 89% of votes were cast by mail, according to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber’s office — or nearly 10.3 million out of about 11.6 million votes cast.

Trump has long criticized mail-in ballots — without evidence — as a source of fraud and a factor in his losing the 2020 election to President Biden, which he still contends was illegitimate.

Election experts, voting rights advocates, local elections officials and other California leaders have all dismissed those claims as unfounded and inaccurate. They have also been preparing for Trump to act to curtail such voting.

Padilla previously warned colleagues that he would force a vote on any effort by Trump to declare a national emergency in order to seize control of this year’s midterm elections from the states, forcing them to either co-sign on the power grab or resist it.

Critics of mail ballots have also been actively working to end or curtail the practice. Just last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case in which the Republican Party challenged a Mississippi law that allows ballots to be accepted and counted if they arrive up to five days after election day.

During those arguments, the court’s six conservatives sounded ready to rule that federal law requires ballots to be received by election day in order to be counted as legal.

Weber, California’s top elections official, has warned that attacks on mail-in voting risked undermining a system the state has spent years building around universal mail voting.

Trump’s executive order is the latest front in a years-long campaign he has led attacking the integrity of U.S. elections — which has contributed to a steep decline in voter trust in U.S. elections.

On Tuesday, Trump said his order was drafted by “great legal minds,” and will survive any legal challenges unless “rogue” judges rule against it inappropriately.

“We want to have honest voting in our country,” he said.

Rick Hasen, an election law expert and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA Law, argued otherwise in a post Tuesday, noting that an earlier executive order purporting to place new federal controls on elections was blocked in court, and “this one is likely to fare no better.”

“To put this in plain terms: the order would use the USPS, which is not under the direct control of the President, to interfere with a state’s lawful transmission of ballots. If the state does not comply with these rules, federal law would purport to interfere with a state’s conduct of its own elections,” Hasen wrote. “The President does not have the authority to do this.”

WASHINGTON — A federal judge agreed Friday to block the Trump administration from enforcing a policy limiting news reporters’ access to the Pentagon, agreeing with The New York Times that key portions of the new rules are unlawful.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman in Washington sided with the newspaper and ruled that the Pentagon policy illegally restricts the press credentials of reporters who walked out of the building rather than agree to the new rules.

The Times sued the Pentagon and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in December, claiming the credentialing policy violates the journalists’ constitutional rights to free speech and due process.

The current Pentagon press corps is comprised mostly of conservative outlets that agreed to the policy. Reporters from outlets that refused to consent to the new rules, including from the Associated Press, have continued reporting on the military.

Friedman, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Bill Clinton, said the policy “fails to provide fair notice of what routine, lawful journalistic practices will result in the denial, suspension, or revocation” of Pentagon press credentials. He ruled that it violates the First and Fifth amendment rights to free speech and due process.

“In sum, the Policy on its face makes any newsgathering and reporting not blessed by the Department a potential basis for the denial, suspension, or revocation of a journalist’s (credential),” he wrote. “It provides no way for journalists to know how they may do their jobs without losing their credentials.”

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling.

It has argued that the policy imposes “common sense” rules that protect the military from the disclosure of national security information.

“The goal of that process is to prevent those who pose a security risk from having broad access to American military headquarters,” government attorneys wrote.

Times attorneys claim the policy is designed to silence unfavorable press coverage of President Trump’s administration.

“The First Amendment flatly prohibits the government from granting itself the unbridled power to restrict speech because the mere existence of such arbitrary authority can lead to self-censorship,” they wrote.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Konstantin Toropin contributed to this report.