Within hours of President Donald Trump issuing an executive order Tuesday that attempts to create lists of eligible voters and crack down on mail-in voting, Utah’s top election official — a Republican — mocked the threats from the head of her party.

“POV: When the latest Executive Order reminds you of that time when you were a senior in high school and you performed in a one act play called ‘Jack or the Submission’ by absurdist playwright Eugene Ionesco and it was super weird and the script was full of nonsensical dialogue,” Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson wrote in a Threads post Tuesday evening, with a link to the order.

Henderson’s remarks come in the midst of Trump’s Justice Department suing Utah and, so far, 28 other states to gain full access to their voter databases. Federal courts have thrown out four of those lawsuits.

Utah’s lieutenant governor has pushed back on the request for months now, saying it has no legal basis and violates the state’s privacy laws. Trump’s latest effort to exert control over elections appears to collide with Utah law, too.

If a state allows residents to vote through the mail, like Utah, they are instructed to use a federally created “Citizenship List” to compile their own roll of eligible voters to be shared with the U.S. Postal Service, which is directed not to deliver ballots belonging to voters not on the list.

Despite the Trump administration’s order, the U.S. Constitution says states have the power to determine how they run their own electoral processes.

According to the White House, the intent of the order is “protecting the integrity of our elections.” But it is already illegal for noncitizens to register to vote — in Utah, residents must sign an affidavit certifying their citizenship. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in U.S. elections, and noncitizens successfully casting a ballot is exceedingly rare.

Henderson’s office is conducting its own audit of Utah voters’ citizenship, and in January, the lieutenant governor told The Salt Lake Tribune, “We have not yet encountered anyone who voted illegally.”

At the time, there were 486 registered voters in Utah whose information on file was either incomplete or inaccurate, which could be due to typos or a missing driver license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number. Many registered to vote decades ago, before the state required that information.

Henderson’s office said in early March that it hoped to complete the audit “within the next month.” Wednesday afternoon, it said, “We are still working to complete the full citizenship audit.”

The Trump administration has threatened to withhold federal funds from states that don’t comply with Tuesday’s order.

Utah received just over $7 billion in federal funds in fiscal 2024, according to an analysis by the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah. That made up about 27% of the state’s total budget for the year.

Trump’s order comes as U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, Utah’s senior federal delegate, is pushing for the passage of the SAVE America Act. The bill Lee is sponsoring would require people to provide documentary proof of citizenship in order to register to vote and require voters to show their ID before casting a ballot in a federal election — effectively banning vote-by-mail.

Though the bill passed the House in February, it has no path to passing in the Senate, and Trump’s order seeks to implement many aspects of the legislation without lawmaker input.

In the Oval Office on Tuesday evening, Trump said the “cheating on mail-in voting” is “legendary” and took a skeptical tone about the fullness of the voting system in the United States.

“We want to have honest voting in our country, because if you don’t have honest voting, you can’t have, really, a nation, if you want to know the truth,” he said.

The president told reporters last week that he voted in Florida’s special elections through the mail.

Members of Utah’s all-GOP congressional delegation — which includes Lee and U.S. John Curtis, as well as Reps. Blake Moore, Celeste Maloy, Mike Kennedy and Burgess Owens — did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the order from The Tribune.

On social media, Owens cheered the order, writing, “WOW!! One ballot per each ‘verified’ registered voter. Promise.. this is going to drive the leftist Democrats absolutely ‘NUTTS’. Checkmate!!”

Lee had not addressed the order directly on social media as of Wednesday morning, but shared a series of posts arguing with Democrats who spoke out against the SAVE Act and pushing for the Senate to pass the bill.

Utah lawmakers passed their own less restrictive version of the bill this year, requiring documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote in order to participate in state elections. Many Utahns have already satisfied the bill’s requirements by providing their driver license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number.

And Utahns continue to be able to vote by mail, despite repeated efforts to end that system to force voters to show their IDs at the polls. Beginning in 2029, however, Utah voters will have to opt in to receive a ballot in their mailbox — a compromise meant to preserve the popular vote-by-mail system.

After thwarting a Utah House of Representatives attempt to further restrict by-mail voting this year, the Utah Senate agreed to fund a $100,000 Utah Valley University study of “the security … of voting by mail.”

One of the driving influences for removing Utahns’ ability to vote through the mail has been The Heritage Foundation, the conservative group that penned the controversial Project 2025 playbook in anticipation of Trump retaking the White House. Trump has implemented many of its suggestions.

Officials in several other states have pushed back against the EO, as Arizona’s attorney general, Democrat Kris Mayes, threatened to sue over the order. Officials in Oregon have also said they plan to challenge it, and Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey told reporters she is exploring options to “protect our election.”