US President Donald Trump, on Friday, February 13, threatened to try to bypass Congress and force new voting laws ahead of the November midterm elections, where his Republican Party fears losing control of the legislature. Trump said he would soon issue an executive order attempting to impose the rules if Congress does not pass a law requiring photo identification to vote and other nationwide reforms.
Any attempt would likely be met by a legal challenge that could ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court. “There will be Voter ID for the Midterm Elections, whether approved by Congress or not!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “If we can’t get it through Congress, there are Legal reasons why this SCAM is not permitted. I will be presenting them shortly, in the form of an Executive Order,” he wrote.
While many jurisdictions across the United States require photo ID to cast ballots, not all do, with Trump and many Republicans arguing without evidence that those areas have permitted significant voter fraud.
The Trump-backed “SAVE America” election reform act passed in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives this week. However, it is expected to fail in the Senate, where the Republican majority is too slim to pass the law without Democratic support.
In addition to requiring a photo ID to cast a ballot, the bill would also require proof of citizenship to register to vote. There is no evidence of meaningful fraud in US elections and critics say that the bill’s measures would instead push millions of people away from casting ballots, because they don’t have a passport or a paper copy of their birth certificate.
Our voting laws are a hodgepodge of Federal ans State laws. The current Federal voter registration form (which States are obligated to accept) asks you to simply affirm (under penalty of perjury) that you are a citizen. Conservatives point to this as “proof” that the voter rolls must be filled with non-citizens, probably because they are so comfortable with lying.
In fact, some Conservative states impose their own documentation requirements, and if someone comes with that Federal form they accept it, but only let them vote in elections with Federal positions on the ballot (President, Senator, Representative).
But a non-citizen would be nuts to sign that form, because if they are found out then they could be prosecuted for a crime, and likely deported. And for what? The chance to offer a tiny bit of influence in our politics? Most people here illegally are looking to keep of the governments radar, not to hend them a form that says “please arrest me!”
Furthermore, Trump’s ramblings are triggering some people because of his emphasis on birth certificates, and on names matching exactly. Yes, they prove citizenship, but many voting age citizens have changed their name in adulthood. Many women look at Trump’s rants as a direct attack on the right of married women to vote. And, sure enough, there is a push for Household Voting in name Conservative circles these days.
TL;DR: Requiring ID causes more problems than it solves, and people are concerned about this administration using it to push the country backwards.