Democratic-led states are racing to safeguard November’s midterm elections against potential interference from the Trump administration and its allies, passing new laws that restrict the presence of law enforcement at polling places or seek to thwart the federal government’s efforts to obtain sensitive election material.
State Laws to Shield Elections
Five states – California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, and Washington state — have recently enacted legislation to shield their elections from federal actions. Sponsors say they are responding to President Donald Trump’s continued rhetoric about fraud in voting and the administration’s increasingly aggressive moves to reshape how voting is conducted.
The US Constitution gives states the primary task of running elections and Congress the power to set the ground rules for federal contests. Maryland state Sen. Cynthia Kagan, a Democrat who co-sponsored a new law aimed at maintaining the state’s deadline for counting mail-in ballots that are received after Election Day, said, “It’s infuriating that the Trump administration believes they can ignore the Constitution of the United States and try to take over our elections.”
Restricting Law Enforcement Presence
In Connecticut, a new provision of state law that goes into effect July 1 seeks to largely bar law enforcement from being within 250 feet of a polling location, ballot dropbox, or vote-counting site without the permission of election officials. State Rep. Matt Blumenthal, a Democrat who chairs his chamber’s government administration and election committee and is a lead sponsor of the new law, said, “The reason why we’ve entertained these steps is because of the shocking and unprecedented statements and actions that Donald Trump and his allies, including in government, have undertaken to threaten and attack our elections.”
Some Republican lawmakers argue that Democrats are trying to interfere with legitimate scrutiny of elections by the federal government. California state Sen. Tony Strickland, a Republican who opposes the new law in his state, said he expects a legal challenge to it on grounds that it could violate the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which prohibits states from regulating the federal government.
Original reporting: KTVZ (Central Oregon) — read the source article.
