President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that pulls federal agencies deeper into the mechanics of voter eligibility checks and mail-in ballot handling for federal elections.

The order tells the Department of Homeland Security, working with the Social Security Administration, to compile and send each state a “State Citizenship List” of people confirmed to be US citizens who will be 18 or older by election day and who reside in that state. Drawn from naturalisation files, SSA records and DHS’s SAVE programme, the lists must be delivered at least 60 days before each federal election and updated regularly. The White House notes these are not voter registration rolls; state and federal laws governing registration still apply. The order also requires a way for individuals to review and correct their records.

Separately, the Postmaster General is directed to start a rulemaking within 60 days that would set nationwide standards for ballot mail. At a minimum, all outbound ballot envelopes would need to carry Official Election Mail markings, be automation-compatible and include a unique Intelligent Mail barcode. The Postal Service would offer states a process to submit, 60 days before an election, lists of voters eligible to receive a mail-in or absentee ballot. USPS would then generate a state-specific “Mail-In and Absentee Participation List” and assign unique identifiers to the ballot envelopes associated with those voters. Under the proposed framework, USPS would not transmit ballots for individuals who are not on a state’s list.

The Justice Department is told to prioritise investigations and, where appropriate, prosecutions of officials or others involved in administering federal elections who issue federal ballots to people not eligible to vote, and of public or private entities that print, ship or distribute ballots to ineligible recipients. The order cites existing criminal statutes that already prohibit non-citizen voting and election-related fraud, and it calls for coordination between USPS, its inspector general and DOJ on potential mail-related offences.

On timelines, DHS must stand up the infrastructure to compile and transmit the citizenship lists within 90 days. USPS must issue a final rule within 120 days. States and localities are told to preserve, for five years, records evidencing voter participation in federal elections — including ballot envelopes — but not the ballots themselves.

The order frames the changes as enforcing longstanding federal prohibitions on non-citizen voting and bolstering mail ballot integrity through auditable identifiers. It points to HAVA and the National Voter Registration Act as statutory foundations, and says federal funds may be withheld from noncompliant jurisdictions where the law allows.

The directives reach into areas typically run by states, including voter list management and absentee workflow, and they rely on large-scale data sharing among federal databases and state election offices. How states and USPS implement the requirements — on tight pre-election timelines — and how privacy and federal–state authority questions are resolved will determine how much changes before voters next cast federal ballots.