President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed a sweeping executive action to overhaul elections in the U.S., including requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections and demanding that all ballots be received by Election Day.
[...]
The move, which is likely to face swift challenges because states have broad authority to set their own election rules, is consistent with Trump’s long history of railing against election processes. He often claims elections are being rigged, even before the results are known, and has waged battles against certain voting methods since he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden and falsely blamed it on widespread fraud.
Trump has focused particularly on mail voting, arguing without evidence that it’s insecure and invites fraud even as he has shifted his position on the issue given its popularity with voters, including Republicans. While fraud occurs, it’s rare, limited in scope and gets prosecuted.
AP
The "move" won't have any challenges in red states.
Judges quickly blocked several key provisions of President Donald Trump’s sweeping anti-voting executive order from March. But red state officials are picking up where Trump left off: obsessing over the myth of noncitizen voters.
[...]
And at least 15 states have sought access to federal databases to look for noncitizens on their voter rolls.
[...]
North Carolina launched a project Thursday that could disenfranchise North Carolina voters, after Democrats warned it violated federal law.
The plan, conceived by a former top GOP legislative aide, would create a two-tiered system for some voters with missing information — allowing them to vote in federal elections, where legal protections for voters are stronger, but not in state and local contests.
The conflict goes back to Republican Jefferson Griffin’s unsuccessful attempt to overturn the results of the election he lost to North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs last year. Griffin argued that thousands of voters should be disenfranchised because their voter record has incomplete information, due to the state election board’s failure to make clear that the information was required. Griffin lost, but now the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is continuing Griffin’s fight for him, suing the state to remove those voters from the rolls unless they provide additional ID.
It’s also the latest example of the GOP going after the voting rights of overseas voters — its new favorite target for voter suppression.
[...]
A group of Native American voters has been fighting a racial gerrymander of North Dakota’s state legislative map since 2021. Now, with the U.S. Supreme Court stepping in, the case could have catastrophic implications for voting rights.
A district court struck down the contested map in 2023, ruling the state had violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by eliminating one of two districts where Native Americans could elect a candidate of their choice and diluting their voting strength. The state appealed the ruling.
In May, the 8th Circuit turned the case on its head. The court voided the district court’s judgment and issued a ruling that could have dire consequences if the Supreme Court agrees with them: private plaintiffs cannot enforce Section 2 of the VRA .
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, acting alone, issued an administrative stay, keeping the court-ordered legislative districts in place for now.
Democracy Docket newsletter
And it's entirely up to SCOTUS when and if they want to hear the case - so, maybe after the elections?
Texas is set to begin a special session Monday that includes drawing a new congressional map, while national Democrats are busy exploring ways to stop the Republican plan.
Texas Republicans are under pressure from the White House to redraw the state’s congressional map to help the party hold its slim majority in the House. Trump reportedly wants Texas to create five new GOP seats.
Gov. Greg Abbott (R) added redistricting to the special session agenda last week, citing “constitutional concerns” raised in a July 7 letter by the DOJ. In that letter, the DOJ argued that Texas impermissibly used race in drawing four majority-minority districts. But in defending a lawsuit brought against its current map, Texas continues to deny using race — raising questions about the justification for the redistricting.
Republicans already hold 25 out of Texas’ 38 congressional seats – a much higher share of seats than their vote-share in the state should net.
Democracy Docket newsletter
The Justice Department has sent several demands to states in recent months for access to their sensitive election and voting data. [...] In many of these demands, DOJ officials claim that they are collecting information as part of the department’s efforts to implement Trump’s order.
[...]
The Trump administration is defying a court order by refusing to say how federal agencies may be implementing President Donald Trump’s sweeping anti-voting executive order, pro-voting groups and Democrats
alleged in a filing Friday.
Among the order’s directives that lawyers for the administration have failed to provide answers about: How is the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) allowing its databases to be used to purge voters? How will the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) punish states for continuing to offer a grace period for mail ballots that arrive after Election Day? And how will the U.S. Election Assistance Commission — an independent agency — withhold funds from states that don’t comply with aspects of the order?
[...]
Trump’s order seeks to fundamentally change how U.S. elections are administered. It would make it more difficult for eligible voters to register to vote and stay registered, kill off popular forms of voting and punish states that do not comply.
Though much of the order has been blocked by multiple federal judges, federal agencies appear to be moving forward with implementing aspects of it, while Republicans are using it as a framework to pursue anti-voting efforts at the state and local levels.
Democracy Docket
North Carolina Republicans have introduced a sweeping elections bill that, among other steps, would bar election officials from encouraging or promoting voter turnout.
Democracy Docket
That's nice. Especially in light of the
new rule that says churches can now promote candidates during services.
The ban would bar members of the state board and county boards from making “written or oral statements intended for general distribution or dissemination to the public at large encouraging or promoting voter turnout in any election.”
[...]
“The idea is that we want the state board to focus on the conduct of the election and that the responsibility for turnout is better handled by other folks,” Rep. Hugh Blackwell, the Elections committee chair and a sponsor of the bill, said when it was unveiled.
[...]
Indeed, the ban is just the latest extreme anti-democracy tactic pioneered by North Carolina Republicans over the last decade or so. In 2016, a court found that the state’s voter suppression law targeted Black voters with “surgical precision.” They drew multiple gerrymandered maps, and stripped the Democratic governor of several powers before he took office. This year, they waged a months-long campaign, ultimately unsuccessful, to overturn a Supreme Court race by having over 65,000 valid votes thrown out after the vote-counting, and two recounts, had been completed.
[...]
After Republicans gained control of the [elections] board in May, they appointed a new GOP majority that quickly ousted Karen Brinson Bell, a respected nonpartisan election administrator, and replaced her with [Sam] Hayes, a Republican operative.
[...]
“There are a number of things I’ve laid out that I would think that anybody, Democrat, Republican or independent or third party could get on board with,” Hayes said. “I have not made any drastic changes and what I’m looking to do is to make elections more efficient, more secure and most importantly, follow the law.”
[...]
On Thursday, Hayes unveiled a separate plan to require over 100,000 registered voters to provide additional information that’s missing from their records, or risk being disenfranchised.
If the GOP-controlled legislature passes HB 958, Gov. Josh Stein (D) is expected to veto it. But House Republicans are just one vote shy of the three-fifths supermajority required to override a veto.
In addition to the turnout provision, the measure, known as HB 958, would add new voting restrictions for military and overseas voters, and ban ranked choice voting. It also would empower Sam Hayes, the state election board’s new director and a former top aide to the Republican House leader, to replace state election board staff with political appointees.
Why don't we just abandon voting in North Carolina?
No comments:
Post a Comment