Trump says he will issue executive order on voter ID if legislation fails

President Donald Trump said Friday there will be voter ID requirements for the midterm elections “whether approved by Congress or not,” vowing to issue an executive order if legislation fails.

“This is an issue that must be fought, and must be fought, NOW! If we can’t get it through Congress, there are Legal reasons why this SCAM is not permitted. I will be presenting them shortly, in the form of an Executive Order,” Trump said in a post on his social media platform.

In an earlier social media post, Trump claimed without evidence that Democrats are not in favor of voter ID laws because they “want to continue to cheat in Elections.”

What is the Trump-backed SAVE America Act requiring voter ID, proof of citizenship to register?

“This was not what our Founders desired. I have searched the depths of Legal Arguments not yet articulated or vetted on this subject, and will be presenting an irrefutable one in the very near future,” Trump said in the post.

“There will be Voter I.D. for the Midterm Elections, whether approved by Congress or not! Also, the People of our Country are insisting on Citizenship, and No Mail-In Ballots, with exceptions for Military, Disability, Illness, or Travel,” he added.

The latest comments come as Trump-backed election reform legislation — the SAVE America Act — narrowly passed the House this week but faces an uncertain future in the Senate.

An earlier iteration of the bill, called the SAVE Act, which also passed the House last year had stalled in the Senate.

Trump and top Republicans have argued the revised bill is necessary to protect the country’s election process before the 2026 midterm elections in November.

The SAVE America Act would require photo ID at polling places and mandate states obtain proof of citizenship before registering a person to vote in a federal election.

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the GOP bill would make it harder for Americans to vote and is “dead on arrival” in the Senate.

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“It’s a fringe piece of legislation that has now taken over the Republican party, masquerading as election security when it’s really about laying the groundwork to meddle in the midterm elections, and make it much harder for people to vote,” Schumer said in a statement Feb. 9 before the House vote.

There has been no credible evidence of widespread fraud or substantiated claims of U.S. elections being tampered with, and experts have long insisted that noncitizen voting is a rare problem. Voter roll audits before the 2024 elections in Georgia found only 20 registered noncitizens out of 8.2 million registered voters statewide. Nine of those actually cast a ballot.

Trump has long made unsubstantiated accusations of fraudulent voting and has repeatedly called for the federal government to assume a broader role in administering elections.

Trump doubles down on suggesting federal government ‘get involved’ in state elections

“I want to see elections be honest. And if a state can’t run an election, I think the people behind me should do something about it,” Trump said from the Oval Office on Feb. 3. “Because, you know, if you think about it, a state is an agent for the federal government in elections. I don’t know why the federal government doesn’t do them anyway. But when you see some of these states about how horribly they run their elections, what a disgrace it is.”

It’s not the first time Trump has said he would change elections via executive order. Trump issued a similar threat in August.

Last March, he signed an executive order titled “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections,” which sought to require voters to prove their citizenship upon registration. The order directed the Election Assistance Commission to update the federal voter registration form to include a requirement for “documentary proof” of citizenship.

That order was challenged in multiple lawsuits, which have so far stymied the administration’s efforts.

In a decision last April, a federal judge said Trump’s attempt to reshape election processes by executive order exceeded his authority.

“Our Constitution entrusts Congress and the States—not the President—with the authority to regulate federal elections,” U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly wrote in her opinion. “No statutory delegation of authority to the Executive Branch permits the President to short-circuit Congress’s deliberative process by executive order.”

ABC News’ Nathan Lee contributed to this report.