If anyone in America knows how the integrity of an election can affect the results, it’s Donald Trump. He infamously lost the 2020 election arguably because of Democrat shenanigans. Defining what Democrats did has proven trickier, but that doesn’t mean they were telling the truth when repeatedly calling it the “most secure in history.”

Trump signed an executive order yesterday on elections, titled “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.” “Free, fair, and honest elections unmarred by fraud, errors, or suspicion are fundamental to maintaining our constitutional Republic,” the order rightly notes. “The right of American citizens to have their votes properly counted and tabulated, without illegal dilution, is vital to determining the rightful winner of an election.”

The order requires some key things to secure our elections: States must verify voters’ citizenship with one of any number of documents before said voters cast a ballot, and states must not count mail-in ballots received after Election Day. The enforcement mechanism is money — states will lose federal funding if they don’t comply.

The first thing you might ask is about a president’s authority here. Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution says, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.”

There’s nothing there about the president. Trump’s order, therefore, may be intended to provoke a court challenge and spur action by Congress or the states. Congressional Democrats have worked in the opposite direction, aiming for several years to supersede state election laws by prohibiting voter IDs and generally slackening efforts to achieve election integrity. HR 1 and its Senate companion would codify Democrat election chicanery, handing them an enduring advantage nationwide.

As for Trump’s order, let’s start with noncitizens. According to The Wall Street Journal’s news desk, “Trump and his fellow Republicans have repeated misleading claims that large numbers of noncitizens have voted in U.S. elections. It is illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, and states have layers of protection to verify that voters casting ballots are eligible. Studies by groups across the political spectrum have found no evidence of ineligible immigrants ever voting in sufficient numbers to affect an election outcome.”

Legacy media outlets always do this: Noncitizen voting is no big deal because it’s illegal, and you can’t prove it happens very often. Well, the correct number of noncitizens voting is zero, but that’s not the reality. Making something illegal doesn’t end its occurrence. This just in.

In fact, noncitizens have successfully cast ballots in several states. Whether that’s determinative is irrelevant. Every ballot cast illegally counteracts one cast legally by a U.S. citizen.

Another problem is that some states do little or nothing to stop the issue. California, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Washington, DC, do not require any form of identification to vote. How does anyone know who cast those ballots? Not counting noncitizen votes is not the same thing as noncitizens not voting.

Next, consider mail-in ballots. As we, led by Mark Alexander, have argued often and loudly, mail-in ballots do more damage to election integrity than any other single issue. In 2020, some 65 million ballots were cast by mail. As Alexander notes, “In nine states and DC, bulk-mail ballots are now mailed to the last known addresses of all ‘registered’ voters.” Those states make laughably pathetic efforts to verify mail-in votes.

Mail-in ballots are not supposed to be but can be — and likely are — filled out by someone other than the registered voter. Heck, one in five mail-in voters admitted to fraud in 2020. Do Leftmedia shills think that doesn’t change outcomes?

The other aspect here is the national embarrassment of Election Season replacing Election Day. Numerous states somehow cannot report full results for many days because they’re slowly counting mail-in ballots, sometimes including those that arrive as much as a week after Election Day. At a minimum, this creates distrust in the results. Worse, it can yield fraudulent results.

In short, Trump’s order is common sense, and it requires only that states follow either laws already on the books or change their practices and standards to match more rigorous ones. Trump will be sued — he always gets sued. He may even lose on presidential authority, but winning the legal case may also not be his end goal. Winning the broader argument that elections should be conducted by citizens in person on Election Day is the ideal objective.