Democratic State Attorneys General Vow To Fight Trump’s Unilateral Attempt To Crack Down on Mail Voting

A group of Democratic state attorneys general are vowing to fight President Trump’s unilateral attempt to crack down on mail voting, which he has long criticized despite using the voting method himself. The plan to restrict mail voting will include directing the U.S. Postal Service to help states verify that ballots are handled properly — something blue state officials say Mr. Trump does not have the power to do. Mr. Trump has been trying for months to get Congress to ban mail voting except in a select number of circumstances, including if a servicemember is deployed overseas or if someone is suffering from a severe medical affliction. Such a restriction on mail voting likely has no chance of passing in Congress, given Republican lawmakers’ past defenses of the practice.In an executive order signed Tuesday evening, Mr. Trump said he was looking to crack down on the “legendary” levels of cheating in American elections. He also said he plans to address voter ID in the future, though he offered no specifics. Immediately after he signed the executive order, he predicted Democrats would challenge it in court. “They’ll probably challenge. You may find a rogue judge … that’s the only way that can be changed,” Mr. Trump said. Within minutes, Democratic officials said they planned to take the president to court. “President Trump can sign all the executive orders he wants. It won’t change the United States Constitution,” Arizona attorney general Kris Mayes said in a statement Tuesday night. “States run their elections, not the President of the United States, not the Department of Homeland Security.”She noted that Arizona — with a large population of senior citizens — has one of the highest mail voting rates in the country. “That system was built by Republicans, passed by a Republican-controlled legislature, and has been used safely and securely for decades. Even Donald Trump himself voted by mail earlier this month,” she noted. “The President is not trying to improve election security, he is trying to control who gets to vote,” Ms. Mayes added. The order directs the Department of Homeland Security to verify individuals’ citizenship by using Social Security numbers and naturalization records, which would then be used by the U.S. Postal Service to determine if mail voting is permissible for someone in a certain state. “If [states] want to use the … U.S. Postal Service, they’re going to get a code — a barcode — from the U.S. Postal Service and they’re gonna put that on the envelope and we will have one envelope per vote,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who oversees the USPS, said in the Oval Office on Tuesday. Ms. Mayes was joined in her threat to sue Mr. Trump over the order by a host of other state attorneys general and state election officials. “Vote-by-mail is safe, and Massachusetts law is clear,” the Bay State’s attorney general, Andrea Campbell, said in a social media post. “The President does not have the authority to override states’ authority on elections or interfere with your right to vote. We’ll see him in court.”Oregon attorney general Dan Rayfield — who successfully sued Mr. Trump in the tariff case earlier this year — said his state will also take legal action. Oregon secretary of state Tobias Read said the same, declaring that it is states — not Mr. Trump — which administer elections in compliance with state law. “This is another desperate, illegal power grab that shows a total lack of respect for the American people and our Constitution. The Constitution is clear: states run elections,” Mr. Read said Tuesday.

Democratic State Attorneys General Vow To Fight Trump’s Unilateral Attempt To Crack Down on Mail Voting

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