With the Oct. 23 deadline for Idaho online voter registration and absentee ballot requests, students all around campus are quickly discovering how they can vote in the upcoming midterm elections. However, proposed mail in ballot restrictions put out by the Trump administration through executive order could restrict their ability to vote.
Executive order 14399 supports stricter voter ID requirements and expands restrictions for absentee ballots and who is eligible to vote by the mail. The order proposes an approved list of eligible citizens be sent from the federal government to the post office for who can or cannot vote.
If a person’s name on their absentee ballot is not on that list, then it will be discarded and their vote will not be counted. The executive order, which was signed Mar. 31, 2026, has since been the subject of many lawsuits from Second Circuit Court of Appeals and most recently the United States Supreme Court.
Early September, a federal judge in Massachusetts blocked the new restrictions on mail in ballots due to the post office having no legal authority to manage elections and denying a person the right to vote.
On Sept. 15, the Supreme Court rejected Trumps bid for the order to be enacted due to the election being less than 2 months away. Justice Kavanaugh stated in the decision Postal service v. California: “applying the rule in the 2026 elections would be arbitrary and capricious in the violation of the Administrative Procedure Act because the state and local election officials do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the election.”
Changing election requirements so close to an election would cause not only confusion among officials but also leave voters scrambling. A study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology showed that in the 2024 election 29% of votes were cast using mail in ballot.
If the rules surrounding absentee ballots were changed only weeks before request and registration deadlines, this would leave many voters unable to vote. This is particularly problematic for students at universities such as University of Idaho that rely on absentees to vote in all elections.
At UI, if a student is not registered in Latah County, they will have to request an absentee ballot from the county or state they are registered in to cast their vote. The scrutiny of current election rules comes from the Trump administration’s efforts to prevent election fraud. Though AP News states: “there is virtually no evidence of election fraud with mail ballots.”
Voting by mail is crucial to students who often do not come from the same town as their university. If their voice can no longer be heard in elections across the nation, students and a large majority of young adults will go unrepresented in the federal government.
Ensuring all American citizens are fairly represented in the highest forms of the nation’s government is essential to ensuring all are accurately represented. By limiting who can vote via absentee ballots, it neglects to hear the voice of all Americans.
Amelie Dobler can be reached at [email protected]