Dem
53
Ties
2
GOP
45
Donald Trump desperately wants to build a federal database of all voters and prevent anyone not in the database from voting. It has probably occurred to him that by simply removing voters in deep-blue ZIP codes from this database, he can effortlessly prevent Democrats from voting, without resorting to ICEmen getting into fights at the polls on Election Day. Clean and simple.
Accordingly, he ordered all states to provide their voter rolls to the feds to initialize the database. Many of the state attorneys general have read the Constitution and know that the states run elections and although Congress has a minor role (e.g., setting a uniform Election Day nationally) the Executive Branch plays no role whatsoever in running elections. Accordingly, 30 states, including some Republican-run states, refused to hand over any data. The federal government responded by suing them.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge in D.C. Sparkle Sooknanan, a Biden appointee, issued a 78-page ruling blocking the administration from collecting data on voters—even from the 18 states that are cooperating. She wrote: "DoJ cannot run roughshod over longstanding laws that were carefully crafted to protect the rights of American people." She specifically noted that the DoJ had no plans to deal with inaccuracies in citizenship records. She cited a 2006 Social Security audit that found over 3 million U.S. citizens who had been incorrectly marked as noncitizens.
The government is reviewing the decision and will undoubtedly appeal to the Court of Appeals for D.C. and then to the U.S. Supreme Court. However, it is very unlikely the Supreme Court will tackle the case in the next 3 weeks. Also, federal law prohibits any systematic review of voter rolls within 90 days of any federal election, so action this year is very unlikely. There could be a huge battle about this for 2028, but for the time being, there is a truce.
If Trump tries again in 2027 and the Democrats control Congress, it is likely the Democrats will try to pass a bill explicitly banning the federal government from collecting this data or interfering in federal elections in any other way. There may well be enough Republican senators from libertarian states in the West to invoke cloture and block a filibuster. Libertarians don't like the idea of the feds telling the states what to do. If a bill passes, Trump will veto it, of course. Then there is the question of whether there are enough votes in each chamber to override a veto. There could be. (V)