Administration

Stacey Abrams on Trump’s mail-in voting order: ‘Patently illegal’

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by Max Rego - 04/05/26 10:14 PM ET

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by Max Rego - 04/05/26 10:14 PM ET

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Former Georgia state Rep. Stacey Abrams (D) on Saturday slammed President Trump’s executive order on mail-in voting as unconstitutional and illegal.

“It is patently illegal, and it is entirely in the playbook of voter suppression that Republicans, including Donald Trump, have been using for the last decade or so,” Abrams, a former Georgia gubernatorial candidate, told host Jonathan Capehart on MS NOW’s “The Weekend.”

On Tuesday, Trump signed an executive order directing the U.S. Postal Service to send ballots only to eligible voters on a list compiled by Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, with assistance from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow and Social Security Administration Commissioner Frank Bisignano.

The order also states that approved mail-in ballot envelopes will have unique barcodes for tracking and directs the attorney general to take “all lawful steps to deter and address noncompliance with Federal law” including withholding federal funds from states and localities in violation.

Despite voting by mail in a Florida special election last month, the president has long railed against mail-in voting. He falsely claimed that the practice, along with immigrants without documentation casting ballots, cost him the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to former President Biden.

More than 20 Democratic-led states on Friday filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, asking the court to declare the order as unlawful. Abrams echoed that argument, saying later Saturday on MS NOW’s “The Weekend: Primetime” that the order is “patently unconstitutional” and illegal.

“The Constitution gives to the states the authority to determine how elections are held. What the Republican regime is upset about is that democracy has been working, that mail-in voting [acknowledges] the fact that not everyone gets up and goes to the farm on a Tuesday morning, and therefore we should have multiple ways to participate in elections,” she told host Catherine Rampell.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), along with the Democratic National Committee and other party organizations, also sued to block the order on Wednesday.

Eight states and Washington, D.C., send all voters their ballots via mail automatically and without request. Twenty-eight states allow voters to request an absentee ballot without listing an excuse, while the remaining states require an excuse to receive one.

Abrams, who lost to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) in the 2018 and 2022 gubernatorial races, said that mail-in voting is intended for seniors, rural communities, students that are away from home and working families.

The former Georgia House minority leader also said on “The Weekend: Primetime” that the tracking of mail-in ballots will create a “database,” a move she said “should terrify” all Americans.

“That is an attempt to do national surveillance and it does not work. Americans have to verify their citizenship as a precondition for voting right now. What [the administration is] trying to do is to actually decide which citizens they like, they’re trying to make a list so they can decide who gets to vote.”

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