Dem
47
GOP
53
With the SAVE America Act going nowhere and the courts constantly pushing back on Donald Trump's attempts to rig the elections, Trump (or, more likely, OMB Director Russell Vought) keeps thinking of new ways to try to rig the midterms. The most recent one is requiring states to check their voting rolls through a controversial federal citizenship verification database or lose a total of $1 billion in funding appropriated by Congress. Many states are wildly against the federal government telling them who can vote in their own state, not to mention that the federal database is undoubtedly rife with errors, not updated in real time, and can easily be manipulated to remove voters in "suspect" (i.e., Democratic) precincts or ZIP codes.
We have seen this movie before. Trump wants states to do something he has no power to order them to do and threatens to withhold lawfully appropriated funds if they refuse. This results in lawsuits and much of the time the states win because what Trump is doing is illegal. But this pattern doesn't deter him because it works with some states and makes him feel good bossing the states around. Many Republican senators who support states' rights are too cowardly to speak up. Congress has some limited power in the area of election rules (such as mandating a uniform national Election Day), but the Constitution does not grant the president any powers to interfere with elections.
One of the other things Trump is insisting on is getting rid of ballot-marking devices. About 30% of voters cast their ballots either using a touch screen attached to a computer that then prints out a paper ballot that is the actual vote (and which can be recounted in a close election) or which counts the votes electronically as they are cast. These devices are valuable to blind voters, since they can read the ballot out loud to the voter and to voters with poor vision, since they can display candidate names in a large font. They also avoid problems with voters who inadvertently vote for two candidates for the same race or otherwise invalidate their ballot. Locations that would be affected by the rules change include Delaware, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina and Los Angeles County.
The estimated costs for changing voting procedures is $2.7 billion. Some states and counties may simply refuse to comply (and sue) on financial grounds. The cost of compliance may exceed the loss of grant money and there is a good chance that after long court battles, the government will have to issue the funds anyway. (V)