New York (AP) – A judge prevented the Trump administration on Thursday from promulgating immediately modify the way in which the federal elections are executedIncluding the addition of a requirement for proof of citizenship to the registration form for federal voters.
The decision is a setback for President Donald Trump, who argued that the requirement is necessary to restore public confidence in the elections. But the judge authorized other parts of Trump scanning decree During the US elections to move forward for the moment, including a directive to tighten voting times by mail across the country.
The executive decree of the March of Trump Revision of the way in which the American elections are organized caused rapid legal proceedings of the United Latin-American citizens’ league, the education fund of the voters of the League of Women, the National Democratic Committee and others, which called it unconstitutional.
American district judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington reassured herself Voting and democratsSaying that the Constitution gives the power to regulate the federal elections to the States and the Congress – not to the President. She noted that federal legislators are currently Work on their own legislation require proof of citizenship to vote.
In 120 pages decision On Thursday, she said that the complainants had proven that the requirement of proof of citizenship would cause their customers irreparable damage and would go against the public interest, while the government had offered “almost no defense of the president’s order on the merits”.
Consequently, it granted a preliminary injunction to prevent the requirement of citizenship from moving forward while the trial takes place.
The judge also blocked part of the order of the republican president demanding that public assistance registrations would assess their citizenship before having access to the registration form for federal voters.
But she denied other requests from a group of democratic complainants, in particular by refusing to block the order of Trump to demand that all the post -voting ballots be received on the day of the country’s election. Nor did she touch Trump’s order to open certain databases to the billionaire Elon Musk Government department to enable it to examine the lists of state voters to search for non-citizens. The judge said that these arguments put forward by the Democrats were either premature or should be brought by states instead.
The complainants had argued that the proof of quote from Trump had violated the clause of the so-called elections of the Constitution, which gives the States and the Congress the authority to determine how the elections are organized.
They also argued that Trump’s order affirms the power he does not have on an independent agency. This agency, The US election assistance committeeDefines the voluntary directives of the voting system and retains the registration form for federal voters.
During a hearing of April 17, the complainants’ lawyers had declared that the requirement of proof of citizenship on the registration form of federal voters would complicate the training of their clients in grocery stores and other public places.
ARIA BRANCH, lawyer for the National Democratic Committee and other Democratic complainants, also argued that the efforts of the decree to strengthen voting deadlines by mail irreparably harm her customers by forcing them to reassign resources to help voters navigate in changes.
“It is time, money and organizational resources and the strategy that cannot be recovered,” she said.
Michael Gates, lawyer for the Trump administration, said that during the hearing, a preliminary injunction was not justified because the order had not been implemented and that a citizenship requirement would not be on the registration form for federal voters for several months.
Roman Palomares, president of the Latin-American citizens’ league, a non-partisan plaintiff, said Thursday that the judge’s decision was a “victory for voters”.
“The efforts to silence the voice and votes of the American electorate must not be held because our democracy depends on all the confident voters that they can vote freely and their vote will be counted with precision,” he said in a statement.
Representing the complainants Democrats, Branch said in a statement on Thursday that “this fight is far from over” but described the decision “victory for democracy and the rule of law on presidential surpassing”.
The presidents of the DNC, the Democratic Governors Association and the Democratic Committees in the Congress declared that if the judge had not ruled in their favor on proof of citizenship: “The Americans across the country – including married women who have changed their surname And low -income individuals – could not have been able to register to vote. »»
The Division of Civil Rights of the Ministry of Justice said it was disappointed by the decision.
“Little is more sacred for a free or more essential society for democracy than the protection of its electoral systems,” said Harmeet Dhillon, deputy prosecutor general of civil rights.
Donald Palmer, president of the EAC, a defendant in the case, said that his office still examined the decision and opinion “but we will comply with the judge’s decision.”
The judge’s decision comes as heads of state elections and premises across the country meet to examine the implications of Trump’s decree on their work.
The Council of Standards of the US Electoral Commission, which was hold a public hearing In North Carolina Thursday, is a bipartite advisory group of electoral officials of each state that meets each year.
Meanwhile, other proceedings against Trump’s order are still pending.
At the beginning of April, 19 prosecutors General Democrats asked court To reject Trump’s executive order. Washington and OregonWho both hold elections to all messages, have followed with their own trial against the order.
The United States differs from many other countries since it does not have national elections led by the federal government. Instead, the elections are decentralized – supervised by states and managed by thousands of local jurisdictions.
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The writer Associated Press Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta contributed the reports.
