Trump order jeopardizes voting rights for Michigan military members overseas

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Thousands of Michigan voters — including scores of military members and their families — could see their voting rights curtailed if President Donald Trump’s recent executive order on voting is allowed to take effect.

The order, issued late last month, introduces major changes to how elections would be run. Among its most concerning provisions for those who serve in the military or live outside the U.S.: a requirement that all voters submit proof of citizenship and that all ballots, including those coming from abroad, must arrive by the close of polls on Election Day to be counted.

Voters who live overseas or serve in the military are largely protected by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, known as UOCAVA. It guarantees that those living away from their home states or around the world can still cast their ballots.

The order represents the latest in a series of Republican attacks on UOCAVA voting, which has historically seen bipartisan support. Conspiracy theories have stoked the belief that the program — which has shown no evidence of fraud — might be used in some way to steal elections. But for the nearly 22,000 Michigan voters who used the program to cast their ballots last year, this new assault could simply make voting more difficult.

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Trump’s order would change several key aspects of election administration, but it offers two key components that could hurt military voters. The first: voters registering would have to prove their citizenship. Citizenship is already required to vote in U.S. elections although documentary proof is not, and violators face harsh penalties.

“Somehow voters are going to have to find a way to send a passport, or maybe a picture of a passport, but I can tell you that can pose a security risk of identity theft,” said Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat, founder of the Overseas Vote Foundation. “Email goes through multiple servers before it’s delivered, and it could go through countries we don’t realize. Is it going to bounce? Can that email be intercepted? Or should we send a paper version of our passport? That shouldn’t travel around.”

Voters who live abroad already have to jump through a number of hoops to cast their ballot, she said. While it could be possible to go to the closest consulate cto prove citizenship, the U.S. has been considering closing some of these offices in several countries.

“This isn’t very well thought through,” she added. “The requirement to show up in person would decimate us.”

While many people who live overseas have a passport, which would be an acceptable verification of citizenship under the order, there is no requirement for members of the military to have a passport. Servicemembers can use their military IDs to travel for work if needed — another ID named in the order — but those don’t typically have any indication of citizenship. The Department of Defense has remained quiet on what that could look like for those serving overseas.

One of the other most significant changes would be the declaration that all ballots must be in by Election Day to be counted. Michigan is one of several states that allows military and overseas voters to return ballots within a few days after the election as long as it is postmarked in time.

That’s not just state law — it’s a right that was amended into the Michigan Constitution when voters overwhelmingly approved Proposal 2 in 2022. Previously, those ballots had to be received by the close of polls, but voters living out of the country now get six additional days for their ballots to arrive and still be counted.

That helps to combat not only the complex process of getting mail from overseas but also recent problems with the U.S. postal system as well, said Barb Byrum, Ingham County Clerk, after the order was announced.

“This would disenfranchise many of our military and overseas voters,” she said.

Cheri Hardmon, spokesperson for the Michigan Secretary of State’s office, confirmed that 1,440 ballots came during the extended window in November, including more than 300 military ballots.

Across the U.S., each state sets its own deadline for UOCAVA ballots to come in. Michigan and Texas each give voters six days after the election, while Pennsylvania voters get a week. In Arizona and many other states, though, the ballot is due by the time polls close on Election Day. The deadlines for the return of UOCAVA ballots are typically independent of the deadline for mail ballots for local voters.

Michigan has been at the center of many of the fights over overseas voting. For example, the Republican National Committee sued Michigan and other battleground states last year after Trump alleged without proof that Democrats would use UOCAVA to receive ballots by email.

In the Michigan suit, the RNC took issue with Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s guidance to local clerks. In it, Benson advised them that a “United States citizen who has never resided in the United States but who has a parent, legal guardian, or spouse who was last domiciled in Michigan is eligible to vote in Michigan as long as the citizen has not registered or voted in another state.”

Such an allowance is standard under UOCAVA to cover the adult children of U.S. servicemembers who grew up overseas, for example. Those people are considered Michigan residents under voting law. But the RNC alleged such advice meant the state was allowing non-Michigan residents to cast ballots. A Michigan Court of Claims judge slapped down the suit shortly before voting started last year but the case is now making its way through appeals.

The Secure Families Initiative, one of the groups that has filed lawsuits against the executive order, alleges that Trump overstepped his office when issuing the order. Secure Families is a group of military family members who focus on protecting the military vote and civil rights, including filing an amicus brief in the RNC suit with the ACLU of Michigan.

Their lawsuit against Trump’s executive order, joined by the League of United Latin American Citizens and the Arizona Students’ Association, is one of several in the weeks since the order was released.

Nicole Meek, an Air Force spouse who works with SFI’s voting rights leadership team, said it has already been hard for military families to vote, and those real and perceived barriers further limit participation.

“Increasing any one of these restrictions would only further disenfranchise military voters,” Meek said.

Her family lives in a different state than the one she votes in, and even just renewing her driver’s license for her home state can be difficult and require months of planning. Casting a ballot often feels like an even bigger task, one that requires voters to know they’re planning to vote as soon as their ballot arrives so they don’t risk postal failures or other timing issues.

She’s seen it happen to her husband, to her friends — basically everyone she knows has struggled to get their hands on a ballot then get that ballot back to where it belongs.

“Even when you’re following all the rules, there’s so many stories like this,” she said. “Military voters should get the benefit of the postmark date. That’s the case in many states, but eliminating that would disenfranchise so many people.”

Continued attacks on a secure way of voting could be dangerous, Dzieduszycka-Suinat said. UOCAVA has always been bipartisan, not to mention secure and increasingly efficient. The new executive order has come with limited guidance and the federal government entities who might provide support have remained silent.

“”People say, ‘well, how am I going to do that?’ Then they panic,” she said. “Everybody knows that every time you add another step into the process, you chip away at the number of people doing it.”

She found some comfort in the idea that the order is likely to be gutted by the courts, but the introduction alone was enough to give her pause.

“The rights haven’t been taken away, not yet,” she said, “but ... if it’s really going to happen, this is definitely going to be a scourge on all overseas voters and suppress participation in elections.”

Hayley Harding is a reporter for Votebeat based in Michigan. Contact Hayley at hharding@votebeat.org.