In an interview with Slate,
Wendy Weiser,
a leading expert on democratic rights at the Brennan Center for Justice,
estimated that
up to 21.3 million people could be disenfranchised by the SAVE Act,
which “would also
completely upend voter registration[,]
end mail registration[,]
end voter registration drives[,]
end online registration,
and make it much harder to do automatic voter registration,”
she warned.
The SAVE Act’s passage would enormously
disenfranchise citizens without passports,
as well as
“rural voters, voters with disabilities, older voters,”
and other vulnerable people who are
“going to face special burden,” Weiser said.
Similar problems would occur should #mail-in #voting be dismantled
-- the practice has been a particular target of Republicans.
Now -- making use of fringe legal interpretations
and building upon an unorthodox Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision,
-- the Trump administration hopes to
establish the precedent that ballots received after Election Day are invalid.
As Diaz commented,
“Egregiously, the executive order tries to
override state laws in 17 states.”
Local laws ensure that late-arriving ballots are counted,
as long as they’re postmarked before Election Day.
Diaz points out that barring this method is also going to
disenfranchise overseas service members
who very commonly vote by mail.
And internationally mailing proof of citizenship documents is not a safe or viable practice.
“All the policies that are in [the order],” Diaz said,
“are things that individual states have tried before
— and they’ve all been disastrous.”
For instance,
proof of citizenship requirements in Kansas and Arizona
necessitated a vast administrative burden to review documents.
Those laws also faced a bevy of challenges.
After years of litigation,
Kansas’s rule was struck down.
“They got sued, and they lost,” said Diaz.
But in the meantime, the rule “ended up preventing tens of thousands of eligible American citizens from registering to vote.”
https://truthout.org/articles/trump-assumes-unheard-of-powers-in-ordering-federal-overhaul-of-elections/