On Thursday, May 28, US District Judge Carl Nichols ruled that the lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s executive order providing restrictions on mail-in ballots was not likely to move forward.
The EO would require the government to create a list of eligible voters based on citizenship data that is already available. The US Postal Service would then only deliver the mail-in ballots to those who are already on approved voter rolls in each state.
The plaintiffs, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, NAACP, and the League of United Latin American Citizens, argued that the order violates the Privacy Act because it creates a list of people who are citizens over the age of 18. They also claim that the order blocks state’s constitutional authority over elections, as The Hill explained.
Judge Nichols, however, said the argument is only valid if a “purely intra-federal government list is created.” Furthermore, “But Plaintiffs fail to demonstrate that such action — that is, the sharing of name, age, and residence information between and among government agencies, if already known to the federal government — would cause a harm sufficient” to bring the lawsuit.
Another argument suggested there is a risk that Democratic voters are more likely to be left off the state citizenship lists than Republicans, but the judge rejected that saying that again, it rests “on a highly attenuated chain of possibilities.”
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