Illinois Democrats vow to defend state elections law against Trump's executive order

Democrats in Springfield and Washington are vowing to defend Illinois election laws against a sweeping executive order from Donald Trump aimed at limiting counting of mail-in votes, requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote and giving Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency access to voter data.

The executive order, signed Tuesday by Trump, was entitled “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections” and threatens the withholding of federal funding to states that do not comply. It also appears to seek the decertification of current voting equipment and the adoption of a new standard for which no equipment has been developed.

The move by Trump was viewed by critics as an attempt to relitigate the allegations of widespread fraud and illegal voting by noncitizens that he raised in trying to overturn the results of his losing 2020 reelection effort. More than 60 court challenges to election results were dismissed, and members of Trump’s own administration declared the 2020 election “the most secure in American history.”

Democrats and voting rights groups contended Trump’s order far exceeds the power of the executive branch to direct election law beyond congressional action and the broad leeway that the Constitution extends to states for conducting elections.

“The main thing to know about the Trump Executive Order on Elections is that it is a massive overreach and will certainly end up in court before much can be executed,” Lawrence Norden, vice president of the elections and government program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, wrote on social media.

Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, who has developed a national platform criticizing the Republican president, said Trump’s order was another example of “ignoring the rule of law and circumventing Congress.”

“We need to call this what it is: another illegal, extreme, and dangerous attempt to take power away from the American people and hand it over the wealthiest man in the world, Elon Musk, who wishes to decide which U.S. citizens can and can’t vote,” he said in a statement from his office, adding that Trump was acting like “an aspiring king hell-bent on disenfranchising millions of voters.”

Trump’s order goes after one significant aspect of Illinois election law, a 2015 statute that requires the counting of mail-in ballots that are postmarked or voter-signed and certified by Election Day and arrive within the following 14 days. Illinois is among about 20 states that allow post-Election Day vote counting.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago in August upheld a lower federal court ruling that dismissed a case brought by Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Bost of Murphysboro and led by the conservative law group Judicial Watch that sought to prevent any votes from being counted after Election Day.

Judicial Watch appealed the case, which was dismissed for lack of standing, to the U.S. Supreme Court. The appeal came less than a month after the conservative 5th District Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana sided with Republicans and said Mississippi’s law allowing post-Election Day vote counting violated federal law.

Counting ballots after Election Day “is like allowing persons who arrive 3 days after Election Day, perhaps after a winner has been declared, to vote in person at a former voting precinct, which would be absurd,” Trump wrote in the executive order. He ignored the fact that voting must take place prior to the end of Election Day to be counted after that day.

Trump ordered the U.S. attorney general’s office to “take all necessary action” against states that “include absentee or mail-in ballots received after Election Day in the final tabulation of votes for the appointment of presidential electors and the election of” U.S. senators and House members. He also said the federal Election Assistance Commission “shall condition any available funding to a state on that state’s compliance” with counting all votes on Election Day.

In his order, Trump also contended that states do not adequately vet voters’ citizenship, “and, in recent years, the Department of Justice has failed to prioritize and devote sufficient resources for enforcement of these provisions.”

As a result, Trump called for the use of a passport or Real ID among a limited number of documents — which did not include birth certificates — to prove citizenship for people registering to vote. He also ordered federal agencies including the Department of Homeland Security to use its databases to help determine if noncitizens were listed on state voter rolls “in coordination with the DOGE Administrator,” using a “subpoena when necessary.”

State Board of Elections officials said Illinois law requires prospective voters to attest that they are U.S. citizens under threat of criminal prosecution. But incidents of noncitizen voting in the country have proven to be rare and the Brennan Center, a liberal voting advocacy group, warned Trump’s order would “block tens of millions from voting” because they lack the required documentation to register.

State election officials also said public voting records that would be subject to be shared with DOGE and other federal agencies, if the order was enforced, would be limited to giving a voter’s name and the street they live on, but no specific address or the voter’s age or date of birth.

While the order threatens states with the loss of federal dollars for noncompliance, the State Board of Elections has received little federal funding for its operations. It is still utilizing money from a $14 million grant in 2018 to upgrade cyber defenses, and for the current year has budgeted for $200,000 from the federal government in a $49.3 million budget.

Trump’s move comes as the Republican National Committee has begun reaching out to state election officials across the nation seeking public records related to the keeping of voter lists. The State Board of Elections said it has received the RNC’s request and is trying to understand how to fulfill it since elections in Illinois are decentralized and run by counties, which maintain their own voter lists.

Other aspects of Trump’s order would, according to the Brennan Center, appear to decertify all voting machines in the U.S. and require states to conform with new federal standards even though no such systems are on the market. Replacing all voting systems could cost billions of dollars, it warned.

In Washington, Democratic U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia of Chicago called Trump’s order “an unconstitutional assault on the right to vote” and said the restrictions he was trying to impose would disenfranchise voters “particularly in minority communities.”

“He attempted to steal the 2020 election, incited an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and then issued blanket pardons for the Jan. 6 rioters,” Garcia said in a statement. “He has zero credibility to talk about election integrity.”

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