Just as Donald Trump entered a luncheon with Republican Senators to air out their grievances with each other over the SAVE America Act, designed to create roadblocks to voting, a federal judge delivered a massive blow to a voting rights executive order that had similar aims.
According to Associated Press reporting, U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper in Boston converted a preliminary injunction from a year ago into a permanent ban on Trump’s first executive order on elections—effectively ending his attempt to overhaul voting procedures nationwide. Casper’s ruling directly rejected Trump’s core argument that the lawsuit brought by Democratic state attorneys general was premature because the rules hadn’t yet been implemented, the AP reported before adding the judge affirmed “… that the Constitution gives states and Congress the authority to regulate elections, and that Trump’s requirements violated the separation of powers.” “The Constitution does not grant the President any specific powers over elections,” Casper wrote in her decision. The order Trump attempted to impose would have required voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship when registering—a voter suppression tactic reportedly designed to disenfranchise millions of eligible Americans. It also would have prevented mail ballots from being counted if they arrived after Election Day, even if postmarked by the deadline, and would have withheld federal funding from states that refused to comply. According to the report, the ruling is yet another in a string of judicial defeats for Trump’s elections agenda, noting “He [Trump] has since signed another executive order on elections, seeking to create a national voter list and limit mail balloting. That directive also faces multiple legal challenges.”
The post Court deals a deathblow to Trump’s executive order on voting rights appeared first on Raw Story.
