Louisiana’s Republican Gov. Jeff Landry has been faithful in following GOP President Donald Trump’s lead and he has even managed to get ahead of the president on a major election change.

The Advocate reported that anyone registering to vote in Louisiana must now include proof of U.S. citizenship when submitting a voter registration application. That requirement came with passage of Act 500 of the 2024 regular legislative session and became effective Jan. 1.

Louisiana’s application forms must include the question, “Are you a citizen of the United States of America?”

Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order that he said would require voters across the country to provide proof of citizenship before they can register to vote.

Under the president’s order, documentary proof of citizenship can include a passport, REAL ID-compliant identification, a military ID indicating citizenship status or a government-issued ID indicating citizenship status.

One of the big problems is that an estimated 9% of U.S. citizens of voting age, or 21.3 million people, do not have proof of citizenship readily available, according to a 2023 report by the Brennen Center for Justice and other groups.

Married women have changed their names and their birth certificates list their maiden names. Those problems surfaced in recent town elections in New Hampshire, which has a new state law requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote.

Louisiana is still developing its registration procedures. Secretary of State Nancy Landry said she backs Trump’s new policy and said it would help Louisiana implement its new law more quickly.

Landry said, “I believe this executive order respects the states’ constitutional authority to administer elections … while requiring the federal government to give the states the tools they need to keep our elections safe and secure.”

Actually, the Heritage Foundation’s latest rankings say Louisiana has climbed to second place in the nation for election integrity, according to louisianafirstnews.com. The state moved up from ninth place, Secretary Landry said.

“I won’t be satisfied until Louisiana is No. 1 in the nation, and I am confident that will happen when we transition to a new, fully auditable voting system,” Landry said. A long overdue search for a new voting system has started and Landry said pilot testing could be conducted in smaller parishes in 2026.

Trump has contested elections since he lost in 2020 and continues to spread falsehoods about elections. The Associated Press reported while fraud occurs, it’s rare, limited in scope and gets prosecuted.

Mail voting has been a longtime Trump target, but he has changed his tune somewhat since even Republicans have begun to admit mail voting is popular.

Trump is involving three major federal agencies in efforts to identify noncitizens that he has claimed are on the voter rolls. They are the Department of Homeland Security, the Social Security Administration and the State Department.

The president’s executive order requires that votes need to be “cast and received” by Election Day. Currently, 18 states and Puerto Rico accept mail ballots after Election Day as long as they are postmarked on or before that date. Louisiana isn’t one of the 18.

As expected, a number of organizations are challenging Trump’s executive order mainly on the fact that states are in charge of elections. However, the federal government does distribute grant money to states, runs a voluntary certification program for voting systems and helps election officials protect their systems from cyber-attacks.

Here is some reaction to Trump’s involvement in elections:

A Democratic ranking member on the House committee that oversees elections calls Trump’s order “misguided, immoral and illegal.”

The president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center said, “The SPLC will fight this order with every tool that we have — to ensure the constitutional right to vote in this country is protected and accessible to every United States citizen.”

An ACLU director said Trump’s directive “threatens to disenfranchise tens of millions of eligible voters.”

Congress for the past year has been trying to pass a citizenship test bill called the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, without success. Trump doesn’t wait. As we have seen from so many of Trump’s recent actions, our steam-rolling president waits for no one.

Jim Beam, the retired editor of the American Press, has covered people and politics for more than six decades. Contact him at 337-515-8871 or jim.beam.press@gmail.com.

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