The decree by United States President Donald Trump, which tightens the rules for voting by mail, faced its first major judicial test this Thursday, when a federal judge heard arguments from Democratic Party lawyers that it would deprive millions of qualified voters.
During a two-hour hearing in Washington, District Judge Carl Nichols did not rule on the Democrats’ leaders’ request to block the March 31 decree. He said he would issue a written decision at a later date, adding that he was ‘aware of the time pressure here’.
Trump, a Republican, for years has promoted the false claim that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread election fraud and called for stricter rules for mail-in voting ahead of the November midterm elections, when his party will try to defend its narrow majorities in Congress.
Your decree instructs his administration to compile a list of confirmed and qualified U.S. citizens to vote in each state and to use federal data to help state election authorities verify who is qualified to vote.
It also requires the U.S. Postal Service to deliver ballots only to voters listed on the mail-in ballot list approved in each state. The states must also preserve election-related records for five years.
The authors of the litigation include Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and the Democratic National Committee.
‘This case is fairly straightforward on the merits,’ said Lali Madduri, attorney for the plaintiffs in the suit, to Nichols. ‘There is no law that authorizes the commands of the decree we are challenging.’
The Department of Justice argued that the litigation is premature because federal agencies have not yet implemented the decree.
Nichols, at times, seemed sympathetic to that argument, saying that it was not clear, at this early stage of the litigation, that the plaintiffs would be ‘irreparably harmed’ by the fact that the federal government collects data it already possesses about qualified voters.
‘We have to assume not only that some states will use the list, but… also that the list will be used in a way that harms some of the state’s voters,’ Nichols said.
A similar lawsuit brought by a coalition of Democratic state prosecutors is pending before a federal judge in Boston.
