A federal judge sided with a coalition of states on Friday that had sued to stop stringent new voting ID requirements that President Trump laid out in an executive order in March.
The ruling went further than a previous court decision to block most of the key aspects of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overhaul election law by executive order. In addition to indefinitely blocking provisions that would allow the federal government to require proof of citizenship for new voters, the judge’s ruling on Friday blocks a directive for Attorney General Pam Bondi to take action against states that continue counting ballots beyond Election Day.
In her opinion, Judge Denise J. Casper of the Federal District Court for the District of Massachusetts wrote that the states were likely to succeed in showing that the order exceeded President Trump’s authority and risked disenfranchising some of the electorate. The ruling blocked the order from taking effect until the resolution of the case.
“The Constitution does not grant the president any specific powers over elections,” Judge Casper, an Obama appointee, wrote.
In April, another judge in Washington, D.C., delivered a similar ruling that found much of the executive order likely unconstitutional. But that order, issued by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, stopped short of blocking the provision that sought to force an Election Day deadline on states for counting mail-in ballots.
Thirteen states currently allow counting of mail-in ballots beyond Election Day if they were sent on time, and since the case before Judge Casper was brought by a coalition of 19 states that included the 13 “ballot recipient states,” she found they had standing to challenge that provision. Her order also blocked a provision that would withhold federal funding from states that failed to comply with the deadline.
The Trump administration has consistently maintained that the requirements are necessary to combat voter fraud and appeared likely to appeal.
In her ruling, Judge Casper cited a number of examples the states had raised that she said generated real concern about “disenfranchisement” and could “create chaos and confusion that could result in voters losing trust in the election process.”
Those included coastal regions of Maine, where some residents are citizens but have Canadian birth certificates and no passports, or in New Mexico where Native American pueblo tribe members living in remote areas may have scant documentation about their citizenship.
She also pointed to situations involving individuals who changed their names, and others that involve older or homeless voters.
“Citizenship documents are also expensive,” she wrote. “For example, in Rhode Island, it can cost up to $165 to obtain a passport and, in the city of Providence, $22 to obtain a birth certificate.”
She concluded that the burden created by the executive order “appears likely to disproportionately disenfranchise Black and poorer Americans.”
She echoed similar concerns about another provision of the executive order that directed the secretary of defense to impose voter ID requirements on members of the military and other U.S. citizens living abroad.
Above all, she found that the order would likely force significant changes to the way the states administer elections, and that it would exceed the limited power a president had to manage those processes.
Its requirements, she wrote “would burden the states with significant efforts and substantial costs to revamp voter registration procedures and would impede the registration of eligible voters, many of whom lack ready access to documentary evidence of citizenship.”
Zach Montague is a Times reporter covering the U.S. Department of Education, the White House and federal courts.
The post Judge Blocks Trump Voting Order Requiring Proof of Citizenship appeared first on New York Times.
