Less than a month before the November midterm elections, the voting process began in America.
Voters went to the polls in a number of states that opened the doors to early voting, while millions received ballots by mail, in preparation for elections that will determine the balance of power in Congress. But voting methods adopted decades ago are at the heart of an escalating political and legal battle, with some, led by US President Donald Trump, questioning the integrity of mail-in voting and his efforts to tighten the rules that regulate it.
The “Washington Report” program, which is the result of cooperation between the “Al-Sharq Al-Awsat” newspaper and the “Al-Sharq” channel, reviews the various methods of voting, and Trump’s efforts to change the voting rules and tighten the conditions for verifying the voter’s identity and eligibility.
Voting by mail
In the United States, Election Day is not necessarily the day on which most voters cast their ballots. In the 2024 elections, about 34 percent of voters voted in person on polling day, compared to 32 percent who cast their votes early in person, and about 34 percent who voted by mail or by absentee ballot, according to a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center.
Voting dates and conditions vary from one state to another, a reflection of a decentralized electoral system that gives states broad powers in managing their elections. For example, in the context of voting by mail, where the voter receives the ballot by mail and returns it in the same way, there are 29 states that allow any voter to request it without providing a reason, while 8 states send the ballot automatically by mail, compared to 13 states that still require an excuse to vote by mail.
But this diversity in voting methods is no longer just a procedural issue. Rather, in recent years, it has turned into part of a broader political battle over the integrity of elections on the one hand, and ease of access to ballot boxes on the other. This division has increased since the 2020 elections and the “Covid-19” pandemic, when reliance on mail-in voting and early voting expanded. Since then, voting by mail has become more closely linked to party affiliation.
Kyle Kondik, managing editor of the Sabato Crystal Ball and communications director at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, points to Pennsylvania as an example. Votes sent by mail constituted about 20 to 25 percent of the total votes in the state in recent years. This bloc, according to Kondik, “is strongly leaning towards the Democratic Party.” But he adds that this was not always the case, noting that Republicans previously enjoyed an advantage among mail-in voters in states such as Florida.
Here one of the paradoxes of Trump's position emerges. On the one hand, the Republican president continues to cast doubt on voting by mail, and warns that it can be exploited for fraudulent operations. On the other hand, he calls on Republicans to use it when the laws of their states allow it, and he himself votes by mail.
John Fortier, senior researcher at the American Enterprise Institute and author of the book “Absentee and Early Voting,” believes that this contradiction is imposed by calculations of electoral reality. Trump is “a realistic president, and he realizes that for his party to win, it must benefit from the rules adopted in every state.”
Election integrity and voting restrictions
The dispute extends beyond the method of voting to the safeguards surrounding it. Republicans are calling for tightening the requirements for verifying voter identity, proving citizenship, and reducing some forms of mail-in voting, considering that facilitating voting must be accompanied by guarantees that make tampering more difficult.
Greg Keller, former executive director of the American Conservative Union, stresses the integrity of the elections without obstructing the voting process, considering that voting by mail opens the door to fraud more than voting in person, as the identity of the voter can be directly verified.
On the other hand, Democrats believe that adding more conditions before voting may practically become obstacles for some voters, especially for minorities, the elderly, people with limited income, and residents of areas where it is difficult to reach polling stations or obtain the required documents. Kondik linked this position to historical incidents when electoral obstacles were used to prevent categories of black voters from exercising their right to vote. But at the same time, he acknowledges that the requirement to show an ID card enjoys broad support, and that its application “should not necessarily be discriminatory.”
As for Fortier, he considers it logical for the voter to show an ID card when voting, but he considers that the issue is broader than simply showing the ID, as it includes registration, voting by mail, verifying the voter’s eligibility, and whether he actually holds American citizenship. This is the controversial point, as American law restricts voting in elections to American citizens, but the registration process depends in most states on the person acknowledging that he is a citizen and qualified to vote without the necessity of showing identification papers. Some states allow additional verification procedures, while court battles are taking place over the extent of their authority to impose additional proof.
Falsifying fears and evidence
Despite Trump and a number of Republicans insisting on possible loopholes in the elections and individual violations as a justification for tightening the rules, Fortier recalls that the cases brought to the courts proved the absence of “widespread fraud” in the elections.
Kondik agrees with this approach, stressing that there is not “a lot of fraud in the American elections,” and considers that the decentralization of the system constitutes in itself an element of protection, as there is no single central authority that manages the entire process, but rather thousands of local authorities that supervise it.
On the other hand, Keller is more skeptical, based on practices such as collecting and delivering ballots on behalf of voters, especially in California.
Hence Trump's attempt to move the battle from political discourse to changing electoral rules. Since his return to the White House, he has pushed for tightening requirements for proof of citizenship and voter identity, criticized voting by mail, and called on Congress to approve the “Save America” project, which imposes reforms on the electoral system.
However, with Congress unable to approve the project, Fortier points out that the states are the ones who administer the elections and impose a large part of their rules, while Congress can enact federal laws regulating specific aspects of the process, stressing that the president cannot cancel voting by mail alone, or impose a unified electoral system on the states.
In an unprecedented step that shook the political and legal pillars of Washington, American society stands on the cusp of a very sensitive historical and moral transformation, as the Pentagon prepares to carry out the first public execution broadcast live over the Internet in the modern history of the United States against former psychiatrist Major Nidal Malek Hassan on December 3.
This case acquires exceptional dimensions because it represents the first military execution by firing squad since 1945. That is, since the end of World War II, the rank of “major” in the US Army was placed under the guillotine of maximum punishment to be a visible example in front of millions of screens after long decades of freezing this type of military rule.
Roots and origin between supremacy and extremism
Nidal Malek Hassan was born in September 1970 in Arlington County, Virginia, to a family of Palestinian origin. He received his education in American schools before deciding to join the military in 1988 immediately after graduating from high school.
The American government fully funded his university studies until he obtained a degree in psychiatry, and he began to rise through the military ranks with stability and confidence until he attained the rank of physician major in the US Army, a position that qualified him for a distinguished future career.
Behind this distinguished military veil, there was a severe identity crisis and a bitter intellectual conflict taking shape in complete secret. Subsequent investigations showed that Hassan engaged in deep intellectual correspondence with extremist leaders abroad, led by Anwar al-Awlaki, a leader in the Al-Qaeda organization, according to what the American media reported.
Hassan began to increasingly express his strong opposition to American foreign policies, considering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan a direct attack on his beliefs. This crisis reached its peak when he received official military orders requiring his transfer to field service on the Afghan front.
“Fort Hood” and the random bloodbath
On November 5, 2009, a few weeks before he was scheduled to be shipped to Afghanistan, Major Nidal Hassan made the decision to completely abandon his military oath and stormed the Soldier Medical Center at the famous Fort Hood military base in Texas.
Hassan drew his firearm and opened heavy and absolutely random fire on his fellow soldiers who were unarmed and waiting to undergo routine medical examinations and vaccinations before deployment.
This sudden attack resulted in the killing of 13 people, including 12 soldiers and one civilian, in addition to wounding 32 others with varying serious injuries, in a massacre described as the bloodiest attack on an American military base in modern history.
The massacre ended with Hassan being shot by Civil Security personnel at the base, leaving him partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair from that day until now.
The courtroom and the shocking confession
During his historic military trial that took place in 2013, Nidal Hassan took a step that astonished those present when he refused to seek the help of lawyers and decided to represent himself legally before the military jury.
Hassan did not make any effort to defend himself or seek excuses. Rather, he explicitly declared his full responsibility for the incident before the judges, stressing that he had changed his allegiance and moved to the other side to protect those he considered to be fighting against American forces.
The panel of 13 military officers found him guilty of 45 counts, including premeditated murder and attempted premeditated murder, and he was finally sentenced to death and transferred to the strict military discipline barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Hassan was not officially convicted of terrorism, since the US military criminal code does not include a separate clause bearing this name, but rather treats the case as a major mass murder crime.
Trump's endorsement and termination of the six contracts
Under strict and complex US military laws, the death penalty can only be carried out against any active military personnel after formal approval and final signature by the President of the United States in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.
After exhausting all available levels of litigation and legal appeals, and the Supreme Court rejecting all of his petitions, President Donald Trump signed the order to implement the ruling based on the clear recommendation of his Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth. This presidential decision paves the way for ending decades of absence of military executions, as this operation is the first of its kind in the US Army in general since 1961 when Private John Bennett was executed by hanging, and its historical peculiarity lies in it being the first military execution carried out specifically by firing squad since the execution of Private Eddie Slovic on charges of desertion in 1945 during World War II.
Screens of death and a divided White House
The US Department of Defense caused a huge surprise when it announced that the execution by firing squad would be public and available to watch live on internet platforms. The Pentagon justified this unprecedented measure by seeking to create a decisive deterrent that clarifies the dire consequences of military treason.
The officials chose to implement the sentence at exactly one-thirty in the afternoon, which is the exact time when Hassan carried out his bloody attack years ago at the Fort Hood base.
The live broadcast announcement sparked a storm of controversy and sharp divisions within the corridors of American politics, and US Vice President J.D. Vance expressed his deep reservations and doubts about the publicity of the broadcast, stressing that he would not watch this scene at all. Democrats strongly criticized this step, considering it regressive behavior unbecoming of a state of institutions, while some Republican Party leaders expressed their disgust at turning judicial justice into a media show similar to the practices of extremist totalitarian regimes.
The legal clash and the constitutionality of public broadcasting
The decision to broadcast live opens a dark and controversial legal and constitutional tunnel in the American legal system, as an official execution has never been shown on public screens in the country’s modern history since the last licensed public execution held in the 1930s.
This political desire collides with the complex legislative wall that regulates the publicity of penalties, and differs fundamentally between local laws and federal regulations. Local laws in most US states prohibit photographing and broadcasting death sentences and limit the attendance of a limited number of witnesses and media personnel to document transparency only, while Federal Military Regulation No. 190-55 governs attendance by a narrow circle that includes relatives of the victims and accredited journalists, with an absolute ban on those under the legal age.
Despite the defense's attempts to file urgent petitions before the civil courts to delay the execution based on these loopholes, the Pentagon appears determined to overcome the obstacles and move forward with the execution and broadcast on the scheduled date.
