The Freedom From Religion Foundation is denouncing President Trump’s reprehensible executive order that carries out his threat to seize control of the federal elections before the midterms.

As FFRF has long maintained, voting is a secular issue and a state/church issue, because a vibrant and fully enfranchised electorate is the best guarantee to protect our secular Constitution and secular government. Restrictive voting laws are a tool of Christian nationalists seeking to seize power by suppressing voting on the part of “wrong” Americans. In embracing the need to protect voting rights, FFRF is also protecting the rights of the 98 percent of its 41,000-plus FFRF members who are registered voters. With an average age of 66, FFRF members are among those Americans likely to take advantage of voting by mail — a special target of Trump. And many live in the eight states where voting by mail is the default.

As the Brennan Center charges, in laudably filing League of Women Voters v. Trump, the president is aiming to illegally rewrite rules for federal elections. However, under explicit instructions in the Constitution, only Congress and the states can set rules for elections under Article 1, Section 4 (with some minor oversight).

Trump’s order directs the Department of Homeland Security, with the Social Security Administration, to create a list of eligible voters in each state in part based on “state citizen lists.” “Various federal privacy and information security laws have prevented the creation of such lists,” the Brennan Center notes, and because of the incomplete and unreliable federal data, “anyone could potentially be disenfranchised.” The U.S. Postal Service would then be charged with determining who may vote by mail and refuse to deliver ballots to anyone not on the newly created federal mail voter lists. Criminal penalties galore would be unleashed, including on mail carriers themselves.

Several federal courts have blocked implementation of Trump’s past directives on voting, such as requiring voters to possess a passport or other citizenship documents. That’s why Trump called on Republicans in Congress not to go home for the Easter Break until they passed the misnamed SAVE Act, which would legislate draconian voter requirements. Fortunately, it is unlikely to pass in the Senate. However, Trump could still issue a more direct fiat against voting by mail, and individual states can enact more voter suppression laws.

Trump’s threat to vote-by-mail
Hours after meeting with strongman Russian President Vladimir Putin last August, Trump claimed that Putin told him, “Your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting,” presumably in reference to the 2020 presidential election that Trump lost. Trump posted a long, rambling message on Truth Social that characterized voting by mail — which almost a third of voters utilized in the 2024 election — as a “scam” and a “hoax” perpetrated by Democrats. Yet voting by mail was originally embraced first by Republicans hoping to nab more rural votes, and Trump himself continues to repeatedly vote by mail, as recently as in a special election in March.

Fact-checking Trump’s many claims, “PBS News Hour” noted that Trump falsely asserts that the United States is the only nation that allows mail-in voting, since at least 34 countries or territories do so. About a dozen of these nations permit all of their voters to engage in this.

“Suppressing the vote is the hallmark of dictators, fascists and other authoritarians,” comment Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co-presidents. “This threat to destroy fair elections, set up the mechanics to rig elections and deny voter access would be a direct strike against our secular democracy and all voters.”

They add, “Trump has voiced voter suppression intentions that would destroy our democratic voting process, deny many Americans the vote and voter access so many of our ancestors worked so hard to obtain.”

FFRF reminds the nation of our original motto, “E Pluribus Unum” (From many [come] one). Never has it been more important for freethinkers to band together with others to uphold basic democratic principles, including voter rights.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to promoting the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters of nontheism. With more than 41,000 members, FFRF advocates for freethinkers’ rights across the globe. For more information, visit ffrf.org.

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