A legal expert was stunned Monday as the Trump administration urged the Supreme Court to give President Donald Trump the path forward to alter mail-in ballot voting in the United States.
Michele Goodwin, professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University, told CNN that the Trump administration's move to push to restore an executive order after the Supreme Court ruled to block Trump's move to tighten rules for mail-in voting was "absolutely unprecedented."
"We've never seen an executive order like this Trump order," Goodwin said.
"Notably, in that First Circuit Court of Appeals [decision], which upheld the injunction from a lower court, one of those three judges was Trump-appointed," Goodwin explained. "That court said that this is null and void on its face, and it is because it's extraordinary. We have known and held for centuries that the domain of elections is left to states to control and monitor. They're responsible for that. This is not something that is just of the last year or two of this administration. This is something that has been fundamental to the United States and its rule of law and politics."
The Trump administration's move has reflected an ongoing pattern, she said.
"One of the ways of seeing this has been a longer arc of Donald Trump with suspicion about U.S. elections," Goodwin explained, referencing Trump's longtime claims that the 2020 election was "rigged" and his legal challenges to try [to] prove that unfounded theory.
"It's worth noting that he lost every one of those challenges except for one, which was not a matter of whether he won or not," Goodwin added. "It was just during COVID to allow for those who were overseeing, those who were handling the elections, to be able to come six feet within those that were handling it. So, it's dead on arrival, but we're not really sure what might happen with the Supreme Court."
