OPEN LETTER : Trump Is Dismantling the Right to Vote, and No One Seems Willing to Stop Him

Introduction: A Democracy Staring Into Its Cracked Mirror

The West, guardian of an ideal that is fracturing

I write from an uncomfortable place — that of someone watching the democratic West commit, before our eyes, a failure it has not yet fully grasped. Not a failure from the enemy — Russia, China, Iran, North Korea — but an internal, surgical, deliberate one. That of an American president who, with the November 2026 midterm elections just months away, is multiplying his blows against the very foundations of free voting.

This open letter addresses you: American citizens, Democratic legislators still resisting, federal institutions that are wavering, and Western allies watching from the other side of the Atlantic with growing alarm. What is happening in the United States is not a simple partisan dispute. It is a full-scale attack against the central pillar of liberal democracy: the right to vote — free, secret, universal.

An executive order, a postal service, and a fear taking shape

In March 2026, Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14399, unofficially nicknamed the "election integrity" order. It assigns the United States Postal Service (USPS) an unprecedented role in American history: deciding which voters are entitled to receive a mail-in ballot. Under this text, the USPS would no longer deliver ballots in states that fail to provide their voter rolls to the federal government. Twenty-three Democratic states filed legal challenges as early as April 2026. A federal judge appointed by Trump refused to block the order in May, ruling the challenges premature.

Simultaneously, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin refused, on June 14, 2026, during a live CNN appearance, to rule out the presence of ICE agents — the immigration enforcement agency — at polling places during the November midterms. A declaration that immediately triggered an outcry: it is currently illegal under American federal law to deploy armed agents or military personnel at voting locations. But this illegality was apparently insufficient to dampen the administration's enthusiasm.

The March 2026 Executive Order: When the White House Seizes Mail-In Voting

Unprecedented power granted to the federal postal service

Executive Order 14399, signed on March 31, 2026, is a text of extraordinary reach. It directs the USPS to initiate a regulatory process to send mail-in ballots only to voters appearing on lists approved by the federal government. It also mandates the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to compile, in coordination with the Social Security Administration, lists of American citizens over 18 eligible to vote in each state. These lists would then be transmitted to state electoral authorities.

In other words, Trump has attempted to nationalize the management of voter rolls — a function the U.S. Constitution explicitly reserves for states. Even Charlie Black, a Republican, declared: "An executive order even charges the USPS with determining which voters may receive mail-in ballots and which cannot, as if that agency could assume such a responsibility." Those words come from someone in his own camp.

The USPS proposed rules: barcodes, lists, and impossible deadlines

On June 2, 2026, the USPS officially published its proposed rule in the Federal Register, opening a 30-day public comment period. The text would require each state to send the USPS, at least 30 days before ballots are mailed, a list of voters who have requested mail-in ballots, along with a unique barcode for each voter. Ballots would only be delivered to individuals on that list. A non-compliant state would simply have the USPS refuse to deliver its ballots.

Democracy Docket, the electoral monitoring organization, sounded the alarm: if the rule became final 30 days after the close of the comment period, the system would be operational just weeks before the November 2026 elections, creating maximum confusion and disruption for local electoral administrations. The NAACP filed a lawsuit on June 3 to block the proposed regulation, arguing it violates a 2021 consent decree obligating the USPS to deliver election mail on time.

DHS and ICE Agents: The Threat of Voter Intimidation

Mullin refuses to rule out the option: a silence that is deafening

On June 14, 2026, on CNN, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin was asked directly: will the administration deploy ICE agents at polling places in November? His answer was a repeated refusal to commit. He argued that agents would only be present "if a security threat arose" and that the priority was ensuring "only American citizens vote." That refusal to close the door is itself a form of intimidation. When a security chief refuses to guarantee that his agents will not be in polling places, the intimidation effect is already achieved — before a single voter sets foot at an urn.

Yet as early as February 2026, a senior DHS official had assured lawmakers that ICE agents would not be present at voting locations. This reversal of position — or at minimum, the cultivated ambiguity — is characteristic of the administration's tactic: send contradictory signals, maintain ambiguity, cultivate fear. Electoral rights groups and experts at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University have noted that deploying armed federal agents at polling places would be illegal under multiple federal and state laws.

A law more than a century old and the question of its circumvention

Since the Civil War, American federal law has prohibited the president from sending armed military forces or federal agents to polling places. The exception in the law applies only to cases where it would be necessary to "repel armed enemies of the United States." Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) expressed it plainly: "Federal law has protected polling places from military interference since the Civil War for good reason. President Trump has made it clear he thinks he can ignore these limits."

The burning question is therefore: will the administration respect existing law, or will it try to find a legal loophole, an administrative pretext, to circumvent this century-old prohibition? Mullin's June 2026 declaration did not dispel the fear. It fed it. And that uncertainty itself is a form of voter suppression through fear.

The Democratic Response: The Protect Our Polls Act Takes the Stage

Slotkin, Gallego, and their allies erect a legislative barrier

On June 18, 2026, Democratic Senators Elissa Slotkin (Michigan) and Ruben Gallego (Arizona) officially introduced in the Senate the Protect Our Polls Act, alongside six other senators: Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin), Mark Kelly (Arizona), Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota), Alex Padilla (California), Jacky Rosen (Nevada), and Raphael Warnock (Georgia). The bill aims to close the legal loopholes the Trump administration could exploit to send troops or armed federal agents to polling places during the midterms.

In concrete terms, the text provides for three things: first, it requires Congress to approve by joint resolution any deployment of military personnel or armed federal agents at electoral sites; second, it cuts off funding for any military force or federal agents to seize ballots or voting machines; third, it protects military personnel from illegal orders in the event of an unauthorized deployment attempt. The president would also be required to provide Congress with intelligence, legal justification, and proof that local authorities cannot handle the situation, at least 48 hours before any deployment.

Words that resonate as a warning cry

At the June 18 press conference, Senator Slotkin was unambiguous: "President Trump is saying the quiet part out loud: he wants to undermine our elections by any means possible, and he refuses to rule out sending uniformed military to polling places or seizing ballots and voting machines." Senator Gallego, a former Marine, added: "As a Marine, I took an oath to the Constitution, not to a president. Using our troops to intimidate Americans at the ballot box is disgusting, illegal, and exactly the kind of abuse this legislation stops cold."

Senator Tammy Baldwin was equally direct: "All of this is at stake this coming November as President Trump is openly contemplating sending armed federal agents to our schools, our churches, our firehouses, and other polling places." These statements are not ordinary political rhetoric. They describe a situation in which American legislators, members of the United States Senate, are compelled to draft a law reminding a sitting president that he cannot send the army to monitor ballot boxes.

The DOJ on the Offensive: Electoral Investigations and Pressure on States

Dan Bishop, voter data, and a section restructured for offense

The assault on free voting does not flow only through executive orders or Mullin's declarations. The Department of Justice (DOJ) plays a central role in this strategy. In April 2026, Trump appointed Dan Bishop to lead a new national voter fraud initiative within the DOJ. Simultaneously, the DOJ's election section was restructured: from more than 30 specialized attorneys, it shrank to less than half, reoriented toward judicial offense against states rather than voter rights protection.

The DOJ brought litigation to obtain sensitive voter data from 30 states and the District of Columbia. Voter registration records containing driver's license numbers and Social Security numbers are being sought. Eileen O'Connor, a former DOJ official, stated: "The Department of Justice has no authority to collect voter lists containing sensitive information such as driver's license and Social Security numbers from all states." By mid-June 2026, the DOJ had lost at least 8 court decisions on this issue.

The FBI seizes, interrogates, searches

The FBI, acting under administration directives, extended its investigations to several states that voted Democratic in 2020. In Georgia, agents searched a Fulton County election office and seized electoral data and ballot images. In Arizona, ballots were seized. In Michigan, ballots were requested. In the Milwaukee area, investigations were expanded. FBI agents also visited the homes of current and former Wisconsin election officials — barely veiled intimidation tactics.

Noah Noble, an election law expert, summarized the situation in terms that should make any democracy defender shudder: "Trump is exploiting lies to justify an unprecedented initiative to have the federal government take over the administration of elections, despite the Constitution assigning that power to states." None of the numerous hearings and prosecutions has uncovered significant electoral fraud in the 2020 election. None.

Historical Context: A Constitution Built to Resist This

The Founding Fathers and their distrust of federal power over elections

The American Constitution was written by men who harbored a deep and legitimate distrust of the concentration of power at the federal level. That is why the organization of elections was deliberately entrusted to states — each managing its own procedures, its own voter rolls, its own voting machines. This constitutional architecture is not an accident. It is a bulwark against tyranny. A president wishing to rig a national election would theoretically face 50 distinct electoral administrations.

Executive Order 14399 attacks precisely that bulwark. By imposing on the USPS and DHS a central role in managing voter rolls and ballot distribution, Trump is attempting to federalize by decree what the Constitution reserves for states. Charlie Black said it plainly: "These attempts are clearly unconstitutional. It is the states that run elections, not the federal government." Even Trump-appointed judges have acknowledged the constitutional question remains open.

Twenty-three states and a cascade of legal challenges

Institutional resistance exists. Twenty-three Democratic-led states, along with the District of Columbia, filed a class-action lawsuit against the March 2026 executive order. The Democratic National Committee and multiple voting rights advocacy organizations also joined these challenges. Judge Carl Nichols — appointed by Trump — refused to block the order in May 2026, but only because the agencies had not yet implemented concrete measures, making the injury too speculative for a preliminary injunction. He explicitly left the door open for new injunction requests once the rules are finalized.

Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger signed a state executive order in May 2026 establishing clear procedures for Virginia election officials in the event federal agents arrive at polling places. That initiative illustrates how deeply states must now prepare for the unpredictable — including the possibility that the federal government will attempt to directly interfere in their elections.

Manipulating the Narrative: Election Fraud as Pretext

A founding lie without evidence after six years of investigations

The entire argumentative edifice of the administration rests on one premise: the 2020 election was stolen from Trump through massive electoral fraud. This premise is factually false. Dozens of courts, audits conducted by both Republican and Democratic states, and DOJ investigations under the Trump administration itself all concluded there was no significant electoral fraud. Trump's own Attorney General, William Barr, stated this publicly in December 2020. Nothing has changed since — except that the fraud fable is now the official pretext for a national policy.

Noah Noble summarized the situation with surgical precision: "Trump appears to believe that Democratic victories are themselves sufficient evidence of fraud, as he bluntly stated: 'If they don't cheat, they can't win.'" That is a perfect and perfectly totalitarian logical circle: any defeat is proof of fraud, therefore any "protective" measure is justified. Applied systematically, this reasoning theoretically justifies any attack on the right to vote.

The White House's response: the SAVE America Act as a counter-narrative

Facing pressure from Democrats and criticism from electoral experts, the White House has its answer ready. Press Secretary Abigail Jackson stated that if Democrats were "truly concerned about securing our elections, they would support the SAVE America Act, which incorporates commonsense election integrity measures supported by a majority of Americans." The Republican-backed SAVE America Act would, among other things, require a photo ID to vote — a measure that voting rights defenders argue discriminates against poor voters, the elderly, and minorities.

The tactic is classic: oppose accusations of voter suppression with an alternative bill presented as reasonable reform, while continuing to advance on the terrain of executive orders and administrative procedures. John Thune, the Republican Senate leader, rejected any idea of "federalizing elections" — without, however, criticizing Trump's executive orders that do precisely that.

The 2026 Midterms at Stake: What Happens If Nothing Changes

Potentially tens of millions of voters cut off from mail-in voting

If Executive Order 14399 and the USPS proposed rule take effect without substantial modification before November 2026, the consequences could be massive. Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA), former California Secretary of State, warned: "Tens of millions of eligible voters could be prevented from voting by mail if states don't fully comply with this rushed new federal mandate before the 2026 elections." California itself has filed suit against the executive order.

The deadlines are particularly alarming. The USPS proposed rule was published June 2, 2026, with a 30-day comment period. The final rule would be adopted 30 days after comments close. This means states will have to comply with an unprecedented new regulatory framework just weeks before November elections — with budgets and staffing already under strain. For small electoral jurisdictions, compliance within the imposed timeline may simply be impossible.

The specter of targeted voter suppression

Electoral experts and civil rights organizations have highlighted a specific risk: the citizen lists compiled by DHS from various federal databases are notoriously inaccurate and incomplete. Recent naturalized citizens, citizens who changed address, people whose data doesn't match exactly across different federal agencies may not appear on these lists — and therefore may not receive their mail-in ballot. The suppression would not be random: it would disproportionately affect the most recently arrived, most mobile, least administratively established communities — that is, statistically, the communities that vote more heavily Democratic.

Trump, Necessary Evil or Structural Threat to Democracy?

The counterweight thesis and its limits

I sometimes hear — and in a certain way, partly accept — the "necessary evil" argument. Trump rearmed the West in the face of Putin's Russia invading Ukraine. He forced European allies to increase defense spending. He adopted a posture of firmness toward China and Iran that cut against years of soft diplomacy that didn't work. On these fronts, his record deserves a clear-eyed assessment, even from his fiercest opponents. Western security is not a luxury, and Trump at minimum understood that geopolitical naivety has a cost.

But there is a line even a "necessary evil" cannot cross without transforming into something far more dangerous: attacking the legitimation mechanisms of power in a democracy. The free vote is that mechanism. When a president who could potentially be re-elected in 2028, or whose allies could be, begins dismantling the electoral machinery that would give his opponents the means to challenge him legitimately, he is no longer playing a risky game — he is playing a different game. One in which democratic rules are obstacles rather than principles.

What our allies observe with alarm

The European capitals are watching. Berlin, Paris, London, Warsaw, Brussels. They see an indispensable military ally whose president is actively undermining the legitimacy of the next elections. And they run the mental calculation: if the 2026 midterms are marked by intimidation, voter suppression, and contested results, what credibility will the American democratic model — which the West is supposed to embody and defend — carry thereafter? Democracy is not preached by example when you are in the process of destroying it from within.

Jurists Sound the Alarm: An Unprecedented Constitutional Revolt

Federal power concentration over elections unprecedented since Reconstruction

Constitutional scholars, former bipartisan election officials, and administrative law experts have unanimously qualified Executive Order 14399 as unconstitutional in its fundamental aspects. The central argument is simple: the U.S. Constitution, in Article I, Section 4, entrusts state legislatures — and Congress, not the president — with authority to regulate federal elections. An executive order alone cannot transfer that authority to a federal agency like the USPS or DHS.

Democracy Docket, which tracks all electoral litigation, has documented that the administration is engaged on multiple simultaneous judicial fronts: voter rolls demanded from states, the USPS rule on mail-in ballots, FBI investigations into state electoral archives. In at least 8 decisions through mid-June 2026, courts ruled against the administration. But these judicial victories take time — time the administration uses to advance implementation.

The race against the clock before November 2026

The timeline is crucial and deliberately compressed. White House Press Secretary Abigail Jackson expressly declared confidence that "the executive order will be in effect before the November election, which was the initial intent when it was signed." In plain terms: the goal is to confront states with a fait accompli. Either they comply with new federal requirements on impossible timelines, or they lose postal services for their ballots. That is a form of administrative coercion that bypasses legislative debate and judicial oversight — at least temporarily.

The Midterm Elections as an Existential Stakes for American Democracy

A cynical and visible political calculation

Trump has not hidden his intentions. In January 2026, during a Republican House retreat, he warned allies that "we have to win the midterms," adding that a Democratic victory would bring an impeachment proceeding against him. The President of the United States explicitly presented the midterm elections as a matter of personal survival. It is in this context that all measures taken since must be read — executive orders on mail-in voting, FBI investigations into state electoral archives, Mullin's declarations about ICE at polling places.

In June 2026, Trump also claimed on Truth Social that the California primaries were rigged — without evidence — after a Republican candidate he backed was defeated. That declaration prefigures what will likely happen if November 2026 results are unfavorable: a systematic challenge to the legitimacy of results, made easier if electoral mechanisms have been previously weakened and rendered opaque.

What Democrats know and say out loud

Senator Warnock (D-GA) expressed it plainly at the June 18 press conference: "This administration has made clear it will stop at nothing to prevent the American people from being heard in November." Senator Rosen (D-NV) added that deploying federal troops at the polls "flies in the face of the political foundation of this country and threatens the voting rights of every American." These senators are not hysterical. They are reading executive orders, declarations, and administration actions — and drawing logical conclusions.

Direct Address to Institutions: Your Role in This Pivotal Moment

To the USPS: you are not an armed wing of the White House

I address directly to you, leaders of the United States Postal Service. Your agency has a mission: deliver mail reliably, impartially, and apolitically. You are an institution that, in American history, delivered ballots during the Civil War, during two World Wars, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your independence is not a bureaucratic luxury — it is a constitutional guarantee. Senator Padilla expressed it clearly: "Under the Constitution and laws passed by Congress, the Postal Service is an independent agency, and Americans depend on it to deliver the mail, including ballots, free from partisan political interference."

You are implementing an executive order that your own legal counsel knows is being challenged in multiple federal courts. You are preparing a ballot tracking system with barcodes and digital portals that will be operational weeks before a historic election. Ask yourself: in 50 years, how do you want history to evaluate your role in the 2026 elections? As the agency that resisted unconstitutional pressure? Or as the one that facilitated voter suppression to comply with an illegal executive order?

To the federal courts: time is itself a political factor

I also address the federal courts that have so far judged challenges premature. I understand administrative law's rules. I understand you cannot preemptively block a rule not yet finalized. But I ask you to recognize a reality that traditional administrative law was not designed to address: when implementation is deliberately rushed to create faits accomplis before November, waiting for each step to be finalized before acting amounts to complicity in the final result. Judicial slowness is not neutral when one of the parties instrumentalizes the calendar.

The Implications for Allied Democracies: What the West Must Retain

A model in crisis cannot be exported

American democracy has always been — whatever its historic share of hypocrisy — a reference beacon for democracies worldwide. Its institutions, its separation of powers, its press freedom, its decentralized electoral system have served as a model — imperfect but real — for dozens of nations aspiring to build political systems founded on the consent of the governed. When this model fractures from within, it is the entire argument in favor of liberal democracy that weakens on the international stage.

Putin's Russia and Xi's China have understood this for a long time. Their respective propaganda machines feed on the contradictions and crises of the Western democratic model to demonstrate to their own populations — and to non-aligned countries — that democracy doesn't work, that it is hypocritical, that it is chaotic. Every Trump executive order on mail-in voting, every Mullin refusal to exclude ICE from polling places, provides ammunition to these authoritarian regimes in their narrative war against liberal democracy.

Europe must speak, not merely observe

To European governments reading these lines with unease: your silence is being interpreted. When European leaders condemn attacks on democracy in Hungary or Poland, yet remain discreet about attacks on voting rights in the United States, they send an unintended message: that democratic standards are negotiable depending on strategic alliances. That is not a message the West can afford to send in 2026, at the very moment it is supporting Ukraine against a Russia that has precisely abolished free and competitive voting at home.

Conclusion: An Open Letter to Democracy Itself

What is still to be saved

American democracy is not dead. Senators Slotkin, Gallego, Baldwin, Kelly, Klobuchar, Padilla, Rosen, and Warnock are resisting. Twenty-three states are fighting in court. Civil society — Democracy Docket, the NAACP, voting rights organizations — is documenting, suing, testifying. Federal judges, even Trump-appointed ones, are refusing blind compliance. Resources, counterweights, and actors playing their roles still exist. That is not nothing. It is quite a lot, in fact.

But these resources have limits. The Protect Our Polls Act was introduced June 18, 2026 — months before the midterms. It must pass the Senate, where Republicans have the majority. Legal challenges take time. USPS administrative rules are advancing. The DOJ continues to pressure states. In this race against the clock, every American citizen, every elected official, every election worker, every judge is an actor. Their engagement or passivity will change the final outcome.

The final call: words that carry weight

I will conclude this open letter by saying this: this is not a matter of party, of left or right, of Republicans or Democrats. It is a matter of the survival of the democratic mechanism itself. A democracy in which mail-in voting is conditioned on the goodwill of a politically controlled federal postal agency, in which immigration agents may potentially intimidate voters at the polls, in which the FBI investigates electoral archives already audited and validated — that democracy is already, in part, damaged. Repairing it requires clarity, courage, and a collective will to say that certain lines cannot be crossed, whatever the pretext.

To you, readers, citizens, institutions: the vote is your fundamental power in a democracy. Do not let it be quietly reduced — through bureaucracy, intimidation, or executive order. The November 2026 midterms will be a test for American democracy. And American democracy, whether we like it or not, remains a test for global democracy.

Primary Sources

U.S. Senate — Press release: Gallego and colleagues introduce the Protect Our Polls Act — June 18, 2026

U.S. Senate — Senator Slotkin press conference on the Protect Our Polls Act — June 18, 2026

U.S. Senate — Senator Padilla press release on the Protect Our Polls Act — June 19, 2026

Secondary Sources

The Guardian — "Experts alarmed as Trump launches broad-front attack on US voting rights" — June 16, 2026

NBC News — "Sen. Slotkin to introduce bill to bar presidents from sending troops or armed feds to polling places" — June 18, 2026

CNN — "Postal Service won't deliver mail ballots for states that don't hand over voter lists, under plan for Trump directive" — June 10, 2026

Democracy Docket — "Postal Service moving forward with Trump's attack on mail voting" — May 29, 2026

Al Jazeera — "US judge rejects immediate block on Trump's mail-in voting executive order" — May 28, 2026