Trump order could reshape state election record storage duration

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.Deep inside the executive order on mail voting President Donald Trump signed March 31 is a technical-sounding line: “States and localities should preserve, for a 5-year period, all records and materials — excluding ballots cast — evidencing voter participation in any Federal election (e.g., ballot envelopes, regardless of carrier).”But the line is a bigger deal than it sounds like, should the executive order go into force (it’s currently facing four federal lawsuits asserting the president exceeded his authority with it). Right now, federal law requires such records to be kept for 22 months. The order more than doubles that requirement, and does so without specifically defining what counts as evidence of “voter participation in any Federal election.” That puts state and local election administrators in a familiar bind: