After a U.S. district court judge barred parts of Donald Trump’s election integrity executive order in April, a coalition of 19 Democrat attorneys general found a second district court judge to block other crucial provisions of the order. Along with the requirement of proof of citizenship to register to vote, these provisions include measures that strengthen security protections for overseas voting and ensure that ballots meet an Election Day deadline instead of straggling in for weeks on end.
By law, only U.S. citizens are allowed to vote in federal elections. But left-leaning Massachusetts Judge Denise J. Casper ruled on Friday that wannabe voters should not have to prove they are citizens by showing documents like a passport, a state-issued photo ID like a driver’s license, or a military ID.
Casper has sided with the 19 Democrat-led states fighting President Donald Trump’s executive order requiring documentary proof of citizenship to participate in federal elections. The states in this case are California, Nevada, Massachusetts, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.
In their lawsuit the states took aim at Trump’s order directing the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to include a documentary proof of citizenship requirement on the federal voter registration form, which would require state employees to assess citizenship — see the documents — before letting applicants register to vote when they apply for public assistance programs. (Those receiving public assistance are automatically handed a federal voter registration card when they apply for services.)
The same executive order has other components, including a directive that Attorney General Pam Bondi take action against states that count absentee or mail-in ballots received after Election Day in the final tabulation of votes and a measure to require proof of citizenship and state eligibility to register as an overseas voter under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA). But Casper nixed those too.
In April U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly barred the order’s critical proof-of-citizenship requirement for the federal voter registration application and, according to Politico, “another provision that instructs federal agencies not to assist individuals with registering unless they can assess that those people are U.S. citizens.” She left provisions like the Election Day deadline and the UOCAVA proof-of-citizenship requirement in place, but Democrats simply moved along to the favorable venue and achieved a victory in one district court that has nationwide consequences for the integrity of U.S. elections.
Casper granted the states a preliminary injunction, preventing Trump’s order from being implemented, saying the states are likely to prevail in further court proceedings. She said implementing better voter ID would likely cause irreparable harm to states, because it would be complicated and expensive.
“The Executive Order will require the States to immediately update their voter registration processes and databases, issue new guidance, conduct trainings and ‘fund and mount public education campaigns to counter confusion and disenfranchisement resulting from the changes,’” Casper wrote in her opinion.
Currently the federal voter registration form requires would-be voters to make a “standard oath” that they are U.S. citizens. It amounts to simply checking a box. Bad actors have done far more to cheat in an election. But Casper was not moved by this reality.
“The Executive Branch now insists that this ‘standard oath’ is not a substitute for proof of eligibility. Rather, according to the Executive Branch, the standard oath is ‘merely a mechanism by which applicants are held accountable for the veracity of all statements they make in completing required application documents.’” She agreed with the states that because Congress made the application form a postcard, it did not intend to require documents.
Incredibly, Casper, touted as the first black female judge to serve on the federal bench in Massachusetts, made the racist claim in her order that asking people to provide citizenship documents is too expensive for black people, costing up to $165 for a passport in Rhode Island, and $22 for a birth certificate in the City of Providence.
“For this reason and others, [it] appears likely to disproportionately disenfranchise Black and poorer Americans,” Casper wrote. She bolstered this claim using “expertise” from an opinion article published by the far-left election interference nonprofit (with $225 million in gross receipts) the Brennan Center for Justice. The center has been working overtime to prevent any sort of meaningful voter identification law from being enacted.
Unfortunately, it appears that Democrats have found the perfect strategy for undermining election integrity and the Trump agenda more broadly: Moving from one jurisdiction to the next until a leftist district court judge in one venue hands Dems a victory that is a loss for Americans everywhere.
Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.
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