California, other states continue the Trump administration to block order on the voting overhaul

California and a coalition of other states continued President Trump and his administration Thursday on his recent decree claiming to radically reshape the voting rules nationwide, in particular by forcing voters to provide proof of citizenship, calling it an illegal attempt by the White House to strip the states of their authority to govern the elections.

“My colleagues General Prosecutors and I prevented him in court because this decree is nothing other than a manifestly illegal takeover and an attempt to deprive voters”, California Atty. General Rob Bonta said in a statement. “Neither the Constitution nor the congress authorize the attempts to vote of the president. We will not be victims of intimidation by him. We will fight like a hell in court to arrest him.”

Trump – Who falsely said that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him – published his order “preserving and protecting the integrity of the US elections” on March 25.

Several other groups, including eminent democratic organizations and members of the Congress and the main organizations for the defense of civil rights, continued to block the order earlier this week. The White House rejected challenges as wrong, accusing Democrats of having increased “crazy objections” to “common sense” electoral protections.

Trump’s order throws the American voting system as extremely exceeded and terribly behind systems in other countries, and calls for the adoption of a new list of nationale voting standards. It depends in part on the statements that Trump has made for years – without evidence – that fraud is skipping in the US elections and that voting by non -citizen immigrants is a major problem.

If he is confirmed by the courts, the order would oblige all voters in the United States to show proof of American citizenship – as a passport or a real identity document – before they can register to vote in the federal elections. Trump said such requirements would help eliminate fraudulent vote by non-citizens.

The defenders of the voting rights claim that the requirement would favor many American citizens who have the right to vote but who do not have such easily available documentation. Trump’s policy criticisms also point out that voting by non-citizens is extremely rare and already illegal during the federal elections.

Trump’s order would also force the States to ignore the ballots by mail which are not received on the day of the ballot. Some states currently have different rules, including California, which accepts the ballots if they are hidden by post by the ballot day and received in a number of days.

The trial indicates that the order would upset “processes that adapt to more voters, reduce obstacles and increase the participation of voters”.

California rules argue that they are part of the reason why the state takes so long to count the ballots and report the results. Californian officials note that the state has tens of millions of voters and that delays say that its diligence ensures that each valid voting bulletin has.

Trump’s order would also retrieve the political contributions of foreign nationals, a problem which was criticized by the Republicans frustrated by major donations to the liberal causes of the Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, who lives in Wyoming.

California has filed its trial to contest Trump’s order alongside 18 other states of the Federal Massachusetts Court. The Bonta office called “unconstitutional, undemocratic and non -American” order and said that this would cause California and other states “imminent and irreparable damage”.

According to the trial, Trump’s order would actually require states “at a frantic pace, to implement training, tests, coordination, implementation and education of voters in several state agencies and databases”. This would require “a time and enormous resources, diverting electoral staff from vital electoral priorities – such as ensuring the functioning of state -of -the -art recording systems and the proper functioning of national and local elections”.

Bonta said the order was more proof of the “total disdain of Trump for the rule of law”, ”

“Let me remind him: he is not a king,” said Bonta. “When he took office, he swore to” preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States “. He also has the constitutional obligation to “be careful that the laws are faithfully executed”, and that does not imply rewrite them, but it seems good. »»

California’s secretary of state, Shirley Weber, the highest official of the state elections, described Trump’s order “an illegal attempt to trample the states and the constitutional authority of the congress on the elections”.

“Throughout history, people have tried to make the vote more difficult through oppressive means such as voting taxes, literacy tests, role purges of inappropriate voters, strategic closures of voting places and voter intimidation tactics,” Weber said in the press release published Thursday. “The progress of this nation has carried out in the past 60 years since the adoption of the law on the rights of voters cannot be minimized and should not be erased.”

The Constitution largely authorizes the States to determine the “time, places and ways” on how the elections are executed. It also gives the congress the power to “do or modify” the regulations surrounding the federal elections. However, this does not specify any role for the president.

The Republicans accused President Biden of having exceeded these limits when he published a decree ordering the federal agencies to promote access to the vote in 2021 – that Trump has since canceled. Democrats and other voting rights have since accused Trump of having exceeded these same limits with his order.

Several other groups also continued on the order of Trump.

The National Democratic Committee continued on Monday, joined by party leaders – including the head of the senatorial minority Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.) and the chief of the Hakeem Jeffries (DN.Y.) – and various other organizations of the Democratic Party.

Two separate proceedings were filed by voting groups and defense of civil rights. The main groups behind one of them – including the Ligue of Voters of Women, the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union – argued that the president “has no constitutional or statutory authority to unilaterally dictate the way in which the elections are organized” and that the order of Trump “is a blatant violation of the separation of powers”.

The groups also accused Trump of having spread a “false and racialized story” and of creating “unnecessary obstacles to the recording of voters”, which, according to them, could “disintegrate millions of eligible voters, in particular colored voters, naturalized voters, disabled voters, low -income voters and naturalized voters”.

The main press director of the White House, Harrison Fields, said in a statement that the Democrats “continue to show their disdain for the Constitution and that he continues to show in their crazy objections to the executive actions of the president of the president to demand proof of American citizenship in order to protect the integrity of the American elections.”

In addition to denying that he lost the 2020 presidential election, Trump was accused of having committed crimes in search of staying in power and forgiving violent supporters who stormed the American Capitol in 2021 to overthrow these electoral results.

Thursday’s trial is the tenth that California has brought against the Trump administration since Trump’s inauguration in January. He was deposited against Trump, American. General Pam Bondi, the American Elections Assistance Commission and other officials of the Trump administration.

Bonta directs the effort alongside Nevada Atty. General Aaron Ford, said his office. The other states that join the dispute are Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.

The staff writer Andrea Castillo contributed to this report.