President Donald Trump signed a broad executive order on Tuesday that attempted an important review of US elections, which requires people to prove their citizenship when they are registered to vote.
The order, which also includes a variety of other changes, from mail tickets to electoral equipment, could risk depriving dozens of millions of Americans. Electoral law experts questioned whether Trump had the authority to make the changes, saying that the order is sure that he will face legal challenges.
Currently, the Federal Law requires that voters sworn under the penalty of perjury who are citizens and eligible to vote when they are registered, and the courts have prevented states from adding documentary requirements for the proof of citizenship for voters in federal careers due to such laws.
Trump’s order addresses the Electoral Assistance Commission, an independent and bipartisan commission that supports electoral officials, To rebuild their voter registration form and demand voters to show passports in the United States or other government identification that citizens show to register to vote.
Approximately half of the Americans had American passports last year, according to the State Department, and a birth certificate does not appear as an acceptable citizenship evidence under the order. Some of the other eligible identification records suggests Trump’s executive order, such as real identifications and military identification cards, do not always show citizenship.
The order says that the actions are designed to prevent non -citizens from voting, although there is no evidence to make significant numbers in the United States. Voting as a non -citizen is a serious crime that creates a trace of paper that must be routinely reviewed by electoral officials.
Trump has long criticized the non -voting citizens as part of their infused electoral fraud influences.
Experts in the elections said they expected the order to be challenged in the Court.
“Much of this is illegal,” said Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the Voting Rights Program at the Brennan Justice Center at the Nyu Law Faculty.
The presidents have no authority on the Electoral Assistance Commission or the Elections, Morales-Doyle and other electoral law experts have indicated in the hours since the order was signed.
“The President has almost no power over federal elections,” said Justin Levitt, a scholar of constitutional law of the Loyola Law Faculty. “As the main policy advisor for democracy and voting rights in the last administration, one of the things that was very clear is the little power that the president has about federal elections, by design.”
The Constitution grants the power of Congress and States to regulate the “times, places and way of celebrating elections”.
Republicans in Congress have introduced a bill of Documentary Requirements for the Test of Citizens, called Save Law. It would allow voters to use their birth certificates to demonstrate their citizenship, although electoral officials and defenders warn that they would still deprive eligible voters who do not have access to these documents.
The Executive Order performs a series of other radical changes, including the prohibition of certain electoral equipment that uses QR codes. These changes would force states to buy and install new electoral equipment at a significant cost. The order also requires that all the tickets be received per day of choice, an attempt to cancel the states that allow the mail tickets that are being sent for the day of the elections that are received later.
He also asks the government’s efficiency department and federal agencies that hunt through the lists of state voters in search of non -eligible voters, which Levitt said it has not been possible for Republicans who seek voter fraud in the past.
