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A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has blocked a significant part of a recent Trump administration executive order that aimed to require individuals to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote with the federal form. The ruling, issued on Friday, October 31, addresses a legal challenge brought by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and various civil rights organizations, including the ACLU.
The court determined that the president exceeded his executive authority by attempting to alter federal election procedures, a power the Constitution largely grants to Congress and the states. Plaintiffs argued that the mandate would create significant barriers for eligible voters, disproportionately affecting naturalized citizens, students, and low-income individuals who might struggle to produce specific documents like a birth certificate or passport. The executive order represented an unprecedented use of presidential power to regulate federal voter registration.
This legal battle is part of a broader push by the administration to tighten voting laws under the premise of preventing non-citizen voting. The administration has sought to use federal databases to verify voter rolls. One such tool is the Department of Homeland Security's Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, which was recently expanded. An investigation revealed details of the risks associated with using Social Security data for voter citizenship checks, highlighting concerns about data privacy and the potential for inaccurate purges of eligible voters from the rolls.
The court's decision halts a central component of the administration's attempted election overhaul. While this ruling specifically targets the federal form, the debate over voter verification continues in various states. In Wisconsin, for example, a judge recently put a hold on his own order that would have required a citizenship check of all 3.6 million registered voters. The legal pushback against the Trump administration's overhaul of US elections underscores the ongoing tensions between election security and voting access. Legal experts anticipate that challenges surrounding the judge's block of the voter citizenship mandate will likely continue.
