Election watchers brace for Trump’s next move after Supreme Court ruling

Por Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney — POLITICO – TOP Stories

The Supreme Court’s rejection of President Donald Trump’s mail-in voting rules just weeks before the midterms generated a collective exhale among election administrators, voting rights groups and congressional Democrats.

“I actually got the first full night of sleep I got in a long time without worrying about ballots,” said Marybeth Kuznik, the elections director in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. “It’s just way too close to an election to implement something that’s this huge.”

But the last-minute churn has them fretting over what else the administration has in store — and wondering whether the perception of a rulebook in flux has already reduced voter confidence.

The whipsawing action on the issue — which included a Supreme Court ruling last month in favor of Trump’s plan followed by another Monday against it — has left many voters worried about when and if they’d get their mail ballots and whether they’d be counted.

“We had a lot of calls,” Kuznik said. “Voters … when they read multiple articles back and forth, you know, one week a judge says this, and no, that was appealed, and then no, wait, it’s not appealed — yes, they follow that, and they get concerned.”

The court’s action this week followed a similar fight over Missouri’s congressional district boundaries, which pinballed among state and federal courts repeatedly, twice requiring Supreme Court intervention. And the Trump administration is asking the justices to weigh in before the midterms once again in a case over whether states may access a Department of Homeland Security citizenship verification tool that voting rights groups have warned contains inaccurate data.

Bob Bauer, a veteran Democratic Party and White House attorney, said the high court’s signal on mail-in balloting should send a persuasive message to the administration that its tactics to change election rules at the last-minute won’t find any quarter in the courts. And he said it’s the latest sign that Trump’s efforts to exert his will over election procedures — stemming from his grievances over losing the 2020 election — may be out of gas.

“I think there is an indication that he may have run his course on this. There’s a steadily diminishing audience and some significant resistance building,” said Bauer, who helped compile a series of essays released Tuesday called “Democracy’s Challenges: 100 Ideas,” attempting to chart a course for bipartisan election reforms in a polarized era.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rep. Joe Morelle, the top Democrat on the House committee in charge of election policy, told POLITICO this month that he also remains confident that election administrators and courts will protect the process.

“The president will do whatever he can to disrupt it. He’s just going to be unsuccessful,” the New York lawmaker said.

But others express deep worry about the confusion while legal battles play out.

Donald Verrilli, a Supreme Court litigator who served as solicitor general under President Barack Obama, welcomed the high court’s Monday ruling but said it was awfully late in the process for the basic rules about the election to be up in the air.

“The court landed in a place that I think was undeniably the right place. I think it would have been a catastrophe for the democratic process if they had not done so. But it’s September 15th!” Verrilli said Tuesday at a Supreme Court discussion hosted by Georgetown Law. “The way in which all that unfolded … injected a huge amount of uncertainty into the electoral process.”

Trump on Tuesday groused about the prolonged litigation, complaining that the “Court System took forever.” He also swiped at his three Supreme Court nominees, none of whom publicly signaled support for allowing his mail-in voting plan to take effect in the imminent election.

“These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court, they are merely a shell of their original selves,” the president wrote on Truth Social.

Verrilli said he remains concerned that another wave of litigation over the outcomes of tight races is around the corner.

“There’s a whole process after election day about certifying who wins, and that’s going to occur, county by county, state by state. We’ve seen in prior election cycles an enormous amount of whatever you want to call it, manipulation, attempted manipulation of that process,” he said.

Fonte: POLITICO – TOP Stories