Washington — A federal judge in Massachusetts blocked President Trump’s administration from implementing portions of his executive order that imposed new requirements involving proof of citizenship to register to vote in U.S. elections.
U.S. District Judge Denise Casper agreed to grant a preliminary injunction sought by attorneys general from 19 states, who brought their legal challenge to Mr. Trump’s executive order in April and sought to block sections of it.
Casper is the second judge to prevent the Trump administration from implementing provisions of the executive order, which aimed to overhaul U.S. elections. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., agreed in April to issue a preliminary injunction in a trio of cases brought by voting rights groups and the Democratic Party.
“There is no dispute (nor could there be) that U.S. citizenship is required to vote in federal elections and the federal voter registration forms require attestation of citizenship,” Casper wrote. “The issue here is whether the president can require documentary proof of citizenship where the authority for election requirements is in the hands of Congress, its statutes … do not require it, and the statutorily created [Election Assistance Commission] is required to go through a notice and comment period and consult with the States before implementing any changes to the federal forms for voter registration.”
The judge’s decision blocks the Trump administration from implementing five sections of the executive order, including a provision that mandates the Election Assistance Commission, a federal independent regulatory commission, to require documentary proof of citizenship in the standardized national voter registration form.
Casper said that the executive order’s instruction for the EAC to add a documentary proof of citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form “conflicts with the will of Congress, rendering the president’s power ‘at its lowest ebb.'”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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