{"id":48081,"date":"2025-04-25T01:21:09","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T01:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/48081\/"},"modified":"2025-04-25T01:21:09","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T01:21:09","slug":"judge-blocks-parts-of-trumps-overhaul-of-us-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/48081\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge blocks parts of Trump\u2019s overhaul of US elections"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A judge on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from immediately enacting certain changes to how federal elections are run<\/a>, including adding a proof-of-citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form.<\/p>\n

The decision is a setback for President Donald Trump, who has argued the requirement is needed to restore public confidence in elections. But the judge allowed other parts of Trump\u2019s sweeping executive order<\/a> on U.S. elections to go forward for now, including a directive to tighten mail ballot deadlines around the country.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s March executive order overhauling how U.S. elections are run prompted swift lawsuits from the League of United Latin American Citizens, the League of Women Voters Education Fund, the Democratic National Committee and others, who called it unconstitutional. <\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington sided with voting rights groups and Democrats<\/a>, saying that the Constitution gives the power to regulate federal elections to states and Congress \u2014 not the president. She noted federal lawmakers are currently working on their own legislation<\/a> to require proof of citizenship to vote.<\/p>\n

In a 120-page decision<\/a> on Thursday, she said the plaintiffs had proven that the proof-of-citizenship requirement would cause their clients irreparable harm and go against the public interest, while the government had offered \u201calmost no defense of the President\u2019s order on the merits.\u201d <\/p>\n

Accordingly, she granted a preliminary injunction to stop the citizenship requirement from moving forward while the lawsuit plays out.<\/p>\n

The judge also blocked part of the Republican president\u2019s order requiring public assistance enrollees to have their citizenship assessed before getting access to the federal voter registration form.<\/p>\n

But she denied other requests from a group of Democratic plaintiffs, including refusing to block Trump\u2019s order to require all mailed ballots to be received by Election Day nationwide. She also did not touch Trump\u2019s order to open certain databases to billionaire Elon Musk\u2019s<\/a> Department of Government Efficiency to allow it to review state voter lists to search for noncitizens. The judge said those arguments brought by Democrats were either premature or should be brought by states instead.<\/p>\n

The plaintiffs had argued Trump\u2019s proof-of-citizenship requirement violated the Constitution\u2019s so-called Elections Clause, which gives states and Congress the authority to determine how elections are run.<\/p>\n

They also argued that Trump\u2019s order asserts power that he does not have over an independent agency. That agency, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission<\/a>, sets voluntary voting system guidelines and maintains the federal voter registration form.<\/p>\n

During an April 17 hearing, attorneys for the plaintiffs had said requiring proof of citizenship on the federal voter registration form would complicate their clients\u2019 voter registration drives at grocery stores and other public places.<\/p>\n

Aria Branch, counsel for the Democratic National Committee and other Democratic plaintiffs, also argued the executive order\u2019s effort to tighten mail ballot deadlines would irreparably harm her clients by forcing them to reallocate resources to help voters navigate the changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s time, money and organizational resources and strategy that can\u2019t be recouped,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Michael Gates, counsel for the Trump administration, said in the hearing a preliminary injunction wasn\u2019t warranted because the order hadn\u2019t been implemented and a citizenship requirement would not be on the federal voter registration form for many months. <\/p>\n

Roman Palomares, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, a nonpartisan plaintiff, said Thursday the judge\u2019s decision was a \u201cvictory for voters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEfforts to silence the voice and votes of the U.S. electorate must not stand because our democracy depends on all voters feeling confident that they can vote freely and that their vote will be counted accurately,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Representing the Democratic plaintiffs, Branch said in a Thursday statement that \u201cthis fight is far from over\u201d but called the ruling a \u201cvictory for democracy and the rule of law over presidential overreach.\u201d<\/p>\n

The chairs of the DNC, Democratic Governors Association and Democratic committees in Congress said if the judge hadn\u2019t ruled in their favor on citizenship proof, \u201cAmericans across the country \u2014 including married women who changed their last name<\/a> and low-income individuals \u2014 could have been unable to register to vote.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Justice Department\u2019s Civil Rights Division said it was disappointed by the ruling. <\/p>\n

\u201cFew things are more sacred to a free society or more essential to democracy than the protection of its election systems,\u201d said Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights.<\/p>\n

Donald Palmer, chair of the EAC, a defendant in the case, said his office was still reviewing the ruling and opinion \u201cbut we will comply with the Judge\u2019s decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge\u2019s decision comes as state and local election officials from across the country are meeting to consider the implications of Trump\u2019s executive order on their work.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission\u2019s Standards Board, which was holding a public hearing<\/a> in North Carolina on Thursday, is a bipartisan advisory group of election officials from every state that meets annually.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, other lawsuits against Trump\u2019s order are still pending.<\/p>\n

In early April, 19 Democratic attorneys general asked the court<\/a> to reject Trump\u2019s executive order. Washington and Oregon<\/a>, which both hold all-mail elections, followed with their own lawsuit against the order.<\/p>\n

The U.S. differs from many other countries in that it does not hold national elections run by the federal government. Instead, elections are decentralized \u2014 overseen by the states and run by thousands of local jurisdictions.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A judge on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from immediately enacting certain changes to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[12019,26200,26204,26203,12261,26206,32,33,295,26201,4179,26207,19905,26205,285,26202,7143,49,5213,978,659,26199,10673],"class_list":{"0":"post-48081","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-ap-top-news","9":"tag-colleen-kollar-kotelly","10":"tag-constitutional-law","11":"tag-dc-wire","12":"tag-district-of-columbia","13":"tag-donald-palmer","14":"tag-donald-trump","15":"tag-elections","16":"tag-elon-musk","17":"tag-executive-orders","18":"tag-general-news","19":"tag-harmeet-dhillon","20":"tag-lawsuits","21":"tag-michael-gates","22":"tag-politics","23":"tag-trump-lawsuits","24":"tag-u-s-news","25":"tag-united-states","26":"tag-united-states-government","27":"tag-us","28":"tag-usa","29":"tag-voting","30":"tag-washington-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114395983695319067","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}