A voter places a mail-in ballot in the mailbox outside the Chester County, Pennsylvania, Government Center on Tuesday, November 5, 2024. (Photo by Pennsylvania Capital-Star/Peter Hall)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats and advocacy groups called for a quick rejection of President Donald Trump’s recent executive order to create citizenship lists and create trackable mail-in ballots in a federal court hearing Thursday.
Lawyers for the Democratic National Committee, Democratic minority leaders Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, and advocacy groups argued that with the midterm elections less than six months away, there was no time to see how the Trump administration implemented the order.
The Trump administration, meanwhile, argued that the order had not yet taken effect and therefore could not be repealed.
The groups are seeking a nationwide short-lived pause on Trump’s delayed March order to release U.S. citizenship and age data from the Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security to states.
The proposal would cause “maximum confusion” and be a “nightmare for election officials,” said Danielle Lang, who argued on behalf of the League of United Latin American Citizens. “Waiting will only undermine public confidence in elections.”
Thursday’s hearing marked the first courtroom showdown Implementing regulation. A coalition of Democratic attorneys general has also sued to block the order. In total, at least five lawsuits were filed.
Trump’s order also directs the U.S. Postal Service to adopt a rule requiring special envelopes for mail-in ballots with a unique barcode. States to which the U.S. Constitution gives authority to administer elections have argued that the order would restrict mail-in voting.
“Nobody knows”
Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols asked tough questions for both sides. He noted that the challenges from Democrats and allied groups may be premature because no rule has been written yet on how the order would work, although he also understood their argument that the order is fundamentally unconstitutional.
“Nobody knows what the rule will say,” Nichols told lawyers for the Democratic groups.
“I think it’s very clear from the EO (executive order) that we know exactly what the rule will say,” said Lalitha Madduri, who represented Democratic groups and Congress leaders.
After back and forth, Nichols conceded, “I agree with your point: there can be no rulemaking consistent with the EO that can be lawful.”
Madduri also argued that there is “no way to repair this damage” of insecurity to voters.
Stephen Pezzi, the Justice Department’s chief trial attorney, said the plaintiffs had the right to “prepare for the darkest fears,” but he argued they would not be able to enforce an injunction because of speculation about error-prone citizenship lists and a yet-to-be-created postal regulation.
There is “certainly no irreparable damage,” said Pezzi.
Regarding the lists of internal government data that aggregate U.S. citizens and their ages, Pezzi said: “It’s not a list of people to target. It’s not a list of non-citizens.” He also said the federal government is “not concerned” about what states do with the lists if they decide to utilize them at all.
“No list will ever be perfect,” Pezzi said, adding that “responsible” states would not blindly remove people from voter rolls if their names do not appear on proof-of-citizenship lists.
Commitment to updates
Nichols told Pezzi that if he rejected an injunction, he would expect the government to share information as the case progressed.
“All right,” Pezzi said.
“I haven’t heard any commitment,” Nichols warned, to which Pezzi agreed.
Nichols said he would issue an order and opinion soon, but did not give a date.
“I understand the time pressure here,” he said.
He warned the administration to notify him of “anything that comes close to a significant change” in the implementation of Trump’s executive order – although he stopped miniature of issuing an official order requiring updates. But, he said, “it would not be good for the government” if it did not promptly inform him of up-to-date developments.
Trump’s election push
Democrats and voting rights groups claim that Trump’s order is, in effect, creating an illegal national voter list and usurping state authority over elections. Opponents of the order accuse Trump of trying to gain unilateral power over elections.
Trump and his aides say the order will lend a hand secure the midterm elections this November. While voter fraud is extremely scarce, Trump has long promoted false conspiracy theories surrounding his 2020 election loss.
The executive order, signed by Trump on March 31, came as part of a broader campaign by the president to influence the conduct of elections.
The Justice Department has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia over sensitive voter data it plans to utilize to identify potential non-citizen voters.
Trump called for Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which requires voters to provide documents proving their citizenship, although the bill has stalled in the Senate. Last year, Trump signed an executive order unilaterally enforcing similar requirements that was blocked in federal court.
“President Trump has repeatedly attempted to rewrite the election rules for his own perceived partisan advantage,” said Madduri, an attorney at Elias Law Group, wrote in a court filing.
GOP officials defend order
Republican attorneys general have intervened in the lawsuits on behalf of the Trump administration and urged federal judges to comply with the executive order. They have given the mandate to offer “optional” resources.
Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas intervened in the lawsuit heard on Thursday and were represented in the courtroom.
States “want access to this resource so that they can verify the accuracy of their own voter registration lists. This flow of information between federal and state agencies is a common and critical feature of our federal system,” the Republican officials wrote in one Court document dated April 20.
The order requires that lists of voting-age U.S. citizens living in each state be provided to state officials at least 60 days before each federal election.
The order does not tell states how to utilize the data, but it directs the U.S. attorney general to prioritize investigations of state and local officials who issue federal ballots to ineligible voters.
According to the order, the list of citizens will be drawn up from naturalization and social security documents. It will also include data from SAVE, a powerful Homeland Security computer program that verifies citizenship by comparing names with information in federal databases.
The order also directs states to notify the U.S. Postal Service at least 90 days before a federal election whether they intend to allow ballots to be sent by mail. States would then be required to provide the USPS with a list of voters who plan to vote by mail at least 60 days before the election.
Opponents of the order argue that under federal law, Trump cannot direct the postmaster general to take any action — whether on elections or other matters. The Postal Service is overseen by a board of governors, and the postmaster general reports to the board.
Trump’s allies argue that the Constitution gives the president broad authority over executive agencies and that Congress cannot place agencies like the Postal Service beyond the president’s reach.
