Washington (AP) – With his pen, President Donald Trump Restructured how Americans can register to vote and when they can vote. Or is it?
After the president signed his executive decree Tuesday, calling for large electoral modifications, such as proof of citizenship for the registration of voters and the date on the return of the election day for the post -voting ballots, electoral officials, state prosecutors and legal experts declared that he would face legal challenges for the encroachment of the State described in the American constitution.
The order is “illegal”, said the democratic secretary of state of Colorado, Jena Griswold, in a press release.
“This cannot be done by executive action,” said David Becker, a former lawyer for the US Ministry of Justice who heads the non -profit center for innovation and research on elections.
The New Jersey Attorney General, Matt Platkin, said that he expects his states and other states to challenge the decree, just as they had several other Trump actions. He said that he had never seen a president threatening the integrity of state electoral rules as Trump through his order.
The Trump administration says that it has the power to demand changes to guarantee the American elections of electoral fraud, that the president wrongly asking is widespread and Responsible for his electoral loss of 2020. A decision concerning the legality of the order finally rests with the courts.
While he signed orderTrump has piled up that there would be more action to combat electoral fraud “in the coming weeks”. Asked about the prescription on a podcast on Wednesday, Trump doubled his threat of retaining federal money for states that do not comply and reiterated his Frequent electoral free.
Here is a more in -depth examination of legal obstacles for Trump’s executive decree:
The president has a limited power to regulate the elections
Trump order calls for spectacular changes to the recording of voters and electoral procedures. On the one hand, it forces states to ensure that all the ballots returned to the ballot day – not simply the mail stamp that day – or risk losing federal funding.
But the authority he claims will be beyond what is described in the Constitution, have declared several experts in elections law. Article I, section 4 of the Constitution indicates that the States determine the “time, places and ways” of the way in which the elections are executed.
In the United States, the elections are unique because they are not centralized. Rather than being managed by the federal government, they are led by electoral officials and volunteers Thousands of jurisdictions Around the country, from the tiny cantons to the sprawling urban counties with more voters than some states have people. The so-called “elections clause” of the Constitution also gives the congress the power to “do or modify” electoral regulations, at least for federal functions, but it does not mention any presidential authority on the administration of the elections.
Becker said that when there was a national problem with the vote which must be resolved, as a particular group of voters refused the right to vote, “this is always done by the congress.”
“Look, the Constitution was very clear: the president is not king,” said Becker. “The president cannot establish decrees that affect states with a pen. If he wants to affect the funding, he must go through the congress to do this. ”
Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the Brennan Center for Justice voting rights program, described the decree “of status and constitutionally”. For example, he underlined the provision requiring documentary evidence of citizenship, which, according to him, violates the national law on the registration of voters.
This is not the first time that a president has published a decree linked to the elections. In 2021, former president Joe Biden published one Ordering the federal agencies to take measures to promote access to the vote – making him criticize the Republicans who argued that it was unconstitutional and exceeded his authority. Trump canceled this order earlier this year.
The order claims a questionable power on an independent agency
Trump’s ordinance educates a bipartite and independent agency called the election assistance commission to modify its registration form for federal voters and its directives for voting systems. He indicates that the Commission should then cancel the certification of voting equipment which does not meet its chosen standards.
But because the CAE was created by the Congress to be independent, “the president cannot simply dictate to the EAC what they are doing,” said Jonathan Diaz, director of plea and non -partisan partnerships of the Legal Center for the Non -Partisan Campaign.
Trump’s directives at EAC come as he did sought to consolidate power Above other independent agencies, including the Federal Electoral Commission and the Federal Communications Commission.
In a blog article, Rick Hasen, professor of law at the University of California in Los Angeles, describes the decree As a “seizure of executive power” which “would seriously move power over the federal elections in the hands of the presidency” if it survives a legal challenge.
An EAC representative did not immediately respond to a request for comments sent by e-mail.
Expect to see prosecution on the priority of voters
Even if the courts eventually reveal that Trump’s order may have been able, parties of these can face additional legal challenges if they prevent eligible people To vote to be able to vote.
Millions of Americans do not have appropriate documents easily available To prove their citizenship even if they are American citizens. For example, during the recent elections of the city of New Hampshire, which recently adopted proof of citizenship, some women had no appropriate documentation because they had changed their last name When they got married.
The order also indicates that the Ministry of Internal Security and the Government Department of Effectivenessthe government’s cost reduction initiative led by Elon Muskwill be able to obtain and review the recording lists of voters of each state and the data of potentially sensitive voters, under the power of assignment.
Xavier Persad, Senior Policy Advisor to the American American Liberties Union, said that he could predict an “defective data examination which would undoubtedly lead to eligible voters to inappropriate for the potential withdrawal of electoral lists and for potential criminal proceedings”. The threat of this result would intimidate voters and suppress participation, he said.
“We will not leave it standing,” said Persad. “We will certainly see the administration in court.”
Legal challenges are on the horizon
With ACLU, the Legal Center campaign and the common cause said they were examining the order of any challenges. A stronger commitment came from the eminent lawyer for democratic elections and voting rights Marc Elias, who posted online on Tuesday: “We will continue”.
The officials of the State elections and the attorneys general had mixed responses, several Republicans applauding the order and its promise to share data of federal citizenship with the states to help them identify the non-citizens on their electoral lists.
Secretary of State of Kansas Scott SchwabA republican who acquired a national profile to repel the theories of the conspiracy of the baseless elections, said in a statement that Trump’s order “argues that the States should have done for years.”
But the main officials of the application of laws in certain States led by Democrats declared that they evaluated the options to defend the laws and electoral processes of their states.
Washington’s state prosecutor General Nick Brown, said his office examined order, noting that his condition would be particularly affected as a state that votes entirely by mail.
“I don’t think a serious lawyer looked at him thinks that order is legal,” he said. “Voting systems for generations have been the field of states and counties to govern.”
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Swenson reported in New York. The writers of the Associated Press Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut, John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas and Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, contributed to this report.
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