Secretary of State condemns Trump order for voter ID

But Senate Gov Ops chair open to compliance legislation

By Guy Page

The Vermont Secretary of State hotly contests President Donald Trump’s March 25 executive order requiring voter ID to prove U.S. citizenship.

“This executive order is a thinly veiled attempt to disenfranchise wide swaths of the American electorate and would fundamentally degrade the integrity of American elections,” SOS Sarah Copeland-Hanzas said in a March 26 press statement.

Copeland-Hanzas, a Democrat who as House Government Operations Committee Chair helped pass Vermont’s Covid-era legislation allowing mail-in ballots and dropboxes, said “this order would require every Vermonter to re-verify their citizenship status in person at their town clerk’s office. This would not only create a massive and expensive administrative burden; it would create an unnecessary hurdle for anyone who doesn’t have easy access to proof-of-citizenship documents.”

However, the Chair of the Senate Government Operations Committee expressed openness to considering legislation making the changes required by the order. “I think it’s something that Vermont could consider,” Sen. Brian Collamore (R-Rutland) said. “Certainly other states are.”

Trump’s executive order is “a move to strengthen election security and public trust.” The order cites concerns that the United States “fails to enforce basic and necessary election protections employed by modern, developed nations.”

The executive order outlines several key policy changes and directives to federal agencies:

Votes in federal elections be cast and received by Election Day. “Numerous States fail to comply with those laws by counting ballots received after Election Day,” Trump says in the executive order. 

Verifying voter citizenship. The Election Assistance Commission (EAC) is directed to update the national mail voter registration form to require documentary proof of United States citizenship. The order specifies acceptable forms of proof, including U.S. passports and REAL ID compliant identification. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Secretary of State are tasked with making database information available to state and local officials for citizenship verification. The Attorney General is instructed to prioritize the enforcement of laws prohibiting non-citizens from registering or voting.

Maintenance of accurate voter registration lists. The Secretary of Homeland Security will review state voter registration lists against federal immigration databases. Furthermore, the Commissioner of Social Security is directed to make the Social Security Number Verification Service and the Death Master File available to election officials for eligibility verification.

The Election Assistance Commission must amend voting system guidelines to favor voter-verifiable paper records and to limit the use of barcodes for vote counting. The EAC will also review and potentially re-certify voting systems under these new standards.

The order also targets foreign interference in elections, directing the Attorney General to prioritize the enforcement of laws prohibiting foreign nationals from contributing to or donating to U.S. elections. Additionally, the Attorney General is instructed to work with state election officials to share information on suspected election law violations and to prioritize federal enforcement in states unwilling to cooperate.

Finally, the order mandates the cessation of all agency actions implementing Executive Order 14019 (Promoting Access to Voting), which was previously revoked. The heads of all agencies and the EAC are required to report on their compliance with this new order within 90 days. The administration states that the goal of these actions is to ensure “free, fair, and honest elections unmarred by fraud, errors, or suspicion”.

Copeland Hanzas said the order is both punitive and unnecessary.

“If states do not comply with this and the other unreasonable provisions in the order – and the Trump administration knows many can’t or won’t – the order threatens prosecution of state/local elections officials and the termination of Federal funding, on which Vermont partially relies to operate our elections.

“Elections in Vermont are secure. Vermont already meets the purported aims of this order. Our voter rolls are meticulously updated at the state and local level, with scrutiny from over 247 town/city clerks who manage their jurisdictions’ voter checklists. We have a paper trail for every ballot cast and perform an in-depth audit after every General Election. Non-citizens are not allowed to vote in Federal or Statewide elections – all residents in Burlington, Winooski, and Montpelier are allowed to vote only in local/municipal elections.  

‘All told, Vermont’s elections are secured on multiple, decentralized levels. We also strive to make our elections accessible, because we believe in supporting every eligible voter’s right to participate in our elections.

“We need to call this Executive Order out for what it is: an effort to disenfranchise voters, intimidate elections workers, and defund the functioning of our democracy. Disenfranchising tens of thousands of Vermonters in the name of preventing the minute chance that a non-citizen might be mistakenly added to the voter registration list will not bring integrity to our elections. It will pull Vermont in the wrong direction. After celebrating 70%+ voter participation in the last two Presidential elections for the first time in Vermont’s history, we should be working to involve even more Vermonters in our participatory democracy – not taking steps to exclude them.’

Copeland-Hanzas’ comments, while highly critical of the order in both tone and detail, appeared to stop short of explicitly promising non-compliance by her office, or recommending non-compliance to others. VDC has requested clarification and will publish it as soon as it is received.