State election officials could soon face a stark choice: Hand over voter lists to the Trump administration or risk losing Postal Service delivery for mail-in ballots, reported CNN.
That
dilemma stems from newly proposed USPS rules that seek to comply with an
executive order President Donald Trump signed this spring to crack
down on mail-in voting. If courts let the order stand, it would give the
federal government an unprecedented
role in elections — and could put even more voter data in the hands of
Trump officials searching for supposed election fraud.
The
proposed rules lay out new conditions that states would have to meet to send
ballots through the mail, including giving the agency lists of all voters set
to receive mail ballots.
So far, 23
Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia are suing, as are Democratic
Party leaders and non-partisan voter advocacy groups, setting up a potentially
active summer of high-stakes judicial rulings.
The Trump
administration cleared an initial legal hurdle last month, when a federal judge
in Washington, DC, who is overseeing one set of the cases, declined to block
Trump’s executive order, allowing the Postal Service to begin implementing it.
The
Democratic Party groups are asking an appeals court to speed up its review of
that decision, warning that voters around the country could be disenfranchised
in this year’s midterm elections if the proposal is not blocked.
In an
interview with CNN, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat whose
state is part of the coalition that filed a legal challenge in Boston, said
that if courts rule for the Trump administration, “Then you will see a virtual
elimination of mail-in voting, unless the states supply voter lists to the
federal government.”
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