'Nobody's ever done anything like this': New 'wildly illegal' Trump vote ploy sparks fear
A new initiative being driven by Donald Trump’s administration to meddle in elections is causing concern, according to a report from the New York Times.
Not content with twisting the arms of the Republican Party at the state level to redistrict in an effort to hold on to a slim GOP majority in the House, the White House is now compiling a first-ever national voter roll by demanding information from over 30 states — most of which have been resisting.
That, in turn, has “elicited serious concerns among voting rights experts” who believe the current administration may use the data to cast more doubt on future elections because the efforts are being led by allies of the president who still maintain the 2020 election was stolen.
According to the Times’ Devlin Barrett and Nick Corasaniti, “The initiative has proceeded along two tracks, one at the Justice Department’s civil rights division and another at its criminal division, seeking data about individual voters across the country, including names and addresses, in a move that experts say may violate the law.”
That led election expert Justin Leavitt of Loyola Marymount University’s law school to warn, “Nobody has ever done anything like this.”
The report notes that administration officials plan to share the information with the Department of Homeland Security which, during the current administration, has been hellbent on deporting immigrants.
That has election officials leery about motive.
In a letter to the Justice Department, Justin R. Erickson, general counsel for Minnesota’s secretary of state, wrote, “Equally concerning is the possibility that the D.O.J. will use the data inappropriately and the fact that the D.O.J. does not appear to have complied with the necessary legal requirements to obtain or use data on several million people.”
Leavitt, agreed, adding, “It’s wading in, without authorization and against the law, with an overly heavy federal hand to take over a function that states are actually doing just fine. It’s wildly illegal, deeply troubling, and nobody asked for this.”
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