By NICHOLAS RICCARDI<\/p>\n
A federal judge has declined to halt President Donald Trump\u2019s\u00a0executive order<\/a>\u00a0creating a federal voter list and limiting mail voting, clearing the way for potential sweeping changes in how American elections are run shortly before this year\u2019s midterm elections.<\/p>\n U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee in Washington, late Wednesday rejected the request by Democrats and civil rights groups that had argued Trump\u2019s order would likely be\u00a0found unconstitutional<\/a>\u00a0because the states and Congress, not the president, have the power to set election rules. Nichols agreed with the Trump administration\u2019s contention it was too early to issue the order because it has yet to be implemented.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Court recognizes that the Postal Service may ultimately issue a final rule that directly affects Plaintiffs or their members, or that the Government may develop State Citizenship Lists that omit specific individuals due to particularized flaws,\u201d Nichols wrote. \u201cPlaintiffs may, of course, renew their motions if and when those future actions occur. Until then, however, Plaintiffs cannot show that preliminary injunctive relief is warranted.\u201d<\/p>\n The legal battle against the provision now shifts to Boston, where voting rights groups have a separate lawsuit against the executive order in federal court.<\/p>\n Trump issued the order in March after a bill he supported to overhaul voting\u00a0stalled in Congress<\/a>. The order would have had the federal government create a list of eligible voters and then directed the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to those on the list. Election officials argued it was ripe for abuse and could cause chaos.<\/p>\n Since his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, Trump has groundlessly claimed mail voting is rife with fraud and has\u00a0launched a federal investigation<\/a>\u00a0into that year\u2019s vote, even though\u00a0repeated audits and investigations<\/a>, including\u00a0ones run by Republicans<\/a>, found it was\u00a0free of widespread fraud<\/a>. Trump also has said he wants to \u201ctake over\u201d election administration in Democratic areas.<\/p>\n Democrats and civil rights groups argued it was urgent that Nichols issue a restraining order in the midst of primary season and with states already gearing up for the fall midterm elections.<\/p>\n This was Trump\u2019s second executive order seeking to overhaul elections and voting.\u00a0His initial election executive order<\/a>, issued just months after he took office in his second term, has been\u00a0blocked by multiple<\/a>federal judges<\/a>. That order sought to require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, among other changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By NICHOLAS RICCARDI A federal judge has declined to halt President Donald Trump\u2019s\u00a0executive order\u00a0creating a federal voter list…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[536,138745,127567,74,76,75,138744],"class_list":["post-335878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-donald-trump","tag-federal-voter-list","tag-mail-voting","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-trump-voter-list"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}