Summary:
Donald Trump has signed a far-reaching executive order that promises to fundamentally disrupt American voter registration processes, introducing measures so restrictive they could in effect disenfranchise millions of citizens if enacted.
Described by Will Scharf, the White House staff secretary, on Tuesday as “the farthest reaching executive action taken” in the nation’s history, the order represents the latest in a long list of assaults against immigration, but also on current voting systems.
The sweeping order amends the federal voter registration form to require proof of citizenship in order to vote. It demands documentary proof for citizenship such as a passport to be eligible to vote in federal elections, empowers federal agencies to cut funding to states deemed non-compliant and instructs the Department of Justice to prosecute what the White House paints as “election crimes”. All the executive orders Trump has signed so far Read more
The measure also seeks to block states from accepting mail-in ballots after election day, regardless of when they are mailed in.
Many of the provisions in the order are likely to be quickly challenged and are legally suspect. The US constitution explicitly gives states and Congress the authority to set the rules for election and does not authorize the president to do so.
“The short answer is that this executive order, like all too many that we’ve seen before, is lawless and asserts all sorts of executive authority that he most assuredly does not have,” said Danielle Lang, a voting rights lawyer at the non-profit Campaign Legal Center.
Republicans have long sought to add a citizenship to the federal form and been stymied by the courts. In a 7-2 decision in 2013, for example, the US supreme court said that Arizona could not require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. The power to set the requirements on the federal form is left to the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission. Courts have also blocked efforts to short-circuit efforts to add the question.
The order tracks with a controversial bill in Congress Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (Save) Act, which would require Americans to prove citizenship in person – a requirement that could immediately eliminate mail-in and online voter registration already across 42 states, as well as DC and Guam.
I’m so sick of seeing “Trump has just signed this insane executive order but don’t worry, what he’s doing is actually ✨_illegal!_✨”
Yeah, well who the fuck is stopping him them? Because from where I’m standing, it seems like no one is.
Fascism has well and truly arrived in the US and American libs still have this insane idea that it can be stopped by the rule of law and the checks and balances they love so much. Well they don’t fucking work when your opponent ignores them and every bureaucrat in government allows him to do so. When the history books are written, let these people be regarded in the same way as those who thought they could work with or appease Hitler.
The people spending long hours working to challenge his illegal efforts in court are who is stopping him. And they are winning, a lot. But courts take time, so trump uses the gap to cause chaos and slip in a few illegal actions.
Thanks to them, in the long term trumps presidency will cost many X more then any savings it is claiming. There will be tons of payouts to federal employees, legal expenses, and the cost of putting back together what he has damaged or destroyed.
All that aside, I don’t here people saying don't worry. I see them saying that his team and his efforts are incompetent attempts to garner attention. Essentially they are just saying that this crew is idiots.
Plus when all the contracts get litigated in court the taxpayers will end up paying for a majority of the remaining unexpended funds to payout for legally reimbursable project expenses.
And probably jntetest.
Well, those were conservatives too.
Not a single disparaging remark about the conservative majority in all 3 branches of government thrusting the knife into the dying corpse of our republic. No why didn’t neoliberals stop them.
Dont paint all these caucuses as the same general groups of people. Like 11% of the representatives of the electors are gutting us alive.
While those being gutted just stand by and do nothing.
If you have the power to stop something, and choose not to, you're choosing to help. That makes you complicit, and history will not be kind to you.
Are you holding or attending labor resistance movement assemblies in private?