New York (AP) – A judge prevented the Trump administration on Thursday from promulgating immediately modify the way in which the federal elections are executedIncluding the addition of a requirement for proof of citizenship to the registration form for federal voters.
President Donald Trump had called for this and other changes in the US elections An executive decree Signed in March, arguing that the United States “cannot apply the basic and necessary electoral protections” which exist in other countries.
American district judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington reassured herself Voting and democrats To grant a preliminary injunction to prevent the requirement of citizenship from moving forward while the trial takes place.
It also blocked part of the executive decree of the Republican President requiring that public assistance registrations would assess their citizenship before having access to the registration form for federal voters.
But she denied other requests from a group of democratic complainants, in particular by refusing to block the order of Trump to tighten the deadlines for voting by mail. Democrats’ demand also denied to prevent Trump from leading the Ministry of Internal Security and the Government Ministry of Effectiveness to examine the lists of state voters as well as immigration databases.
The judge’s ordinance stops the Trump administration’s efforts to pass through a mandate of proof of citizenship which, according to the Republicans, is necessary to restore public confidence in the elections. Voting in federal elections by non-citizens is already illegal and can lead to crime accusations and expulsion.
Two groups of non -partisan organizations and a group of national democrats had continued to block the order of Trump, the unconstitutional appellant.
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They argued that this violates the so-called clause of the Constitution elections, which gives the States, and not to the President, the power to determine how the elections are organized.
The complainants also argued that Trump’s order affirms the power he does not have on an independent agency. This agency, The US election assistance committeeDefines the voluntary directives of the voting system and retains the registration form for federal voters.
During a hearing of April 17, the lawyers of the complainants had argued that the requirement of proof of citizenship on the registration form of federal voters would complicate the registration of the voters of their customers in grocery stores and other public places.
ARIA BRANCH, lawyer for the National Democratic Committee and other Democratic complainants, also argued that the efforts of the decree to strengthen voting deadlines by mail irreparably harm her customers by forcing them to reassign resources to help voters navigate in changes.
“It is time, money and organizational resources and the strategy that cannot be recovered,” she said.
Michael Gates, lawyer for the Trump administration, said that during the hearing, a preliminary injunction was not justified because the order had not been implemented and that a citizenship requirement would not be on the registration form for federal voters for several months.
Roman Palomares, national president of one of the complainants who are not in favor of the case, the Latin-American citizens’ league, said Thursday that the judge’s decision was a “victory for the voters”.
“The efforts to silence the voice and votes of the American electorate must not be held because our democracy depends on all the confident voters that they can vote freely and their vote will be counted with precision,” he said in a statement.
The decision comes as the state and premises electoral officials from all over the country meet to examine the implications of Trump’s decree on their work.
The Council of Standards of the US Electoral Commission, which was hold a public hearing In North Carolina Thursday, is a bipartite advisory group of electoral officials of each state that meets each year.
Meanwhile, other proceedings against Trump’s order are still pending.
At the beginning of April, 19 prosecutors General Democrats asked court To reject Trump’s executive order. Washington and OregonWho both hold elections to all messages, have followed with their own trial against the order.
The United States differs from many other countries since it does not have national elections led by the federal government. Instead, the elections are decentralized – supervised by states and managed by thousands of local jurisdictions.
