Trump Asks Supreme Court To Protect Elections From Voters

President Donald Trump urged the Supreme Court to rescue American democracy from its most persistent security threat: eligible Americans receiving ballots and voting with them. The administration’s emergency appeal seeks to revive a March 31 executive order requiring the federal government to compile citizenship lists and directing the Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to voters appearing on an approved spreadsheet. Lower courts blocked the plan in 23 states and Washington, concluding that replacing established election procedures with a last-minute federal scavenger hunt could disenfranchise lawful voters before the November 3 midterms. The administration cited that finding as evidence that the order had already begun stopping ballots.

“Our elections will be completely secure when nobody knows whether they are allowed to vote until a postal worker checks a federal spreadsheet,” Trump said. “It is a beautiful spreadsheet, the most accurate list ever created, especially after we remove anyone suspicious enough to ask why they are not on it.” Under the proposed system, citizenship would remain a constitutional right, while ballot delivery would become a premium benefit available to citizens whose names, addresses and punctuation agree across several government databases assembled by agencies famous for never making clerical errors.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani further endangered election integrity by barring the Postal Service from implementing the order this year, recklessly suggesting that the executive branch cannot redesign state voting rules shortly before ballots are mailed. The White House said eligible citizens wrongly excluded from the lists would retain full access to democracy through a simple appeals process requiring them to locate decades-old records, submit multiple forms of identification and call a federal help line that regards prolonged silence as a complete answer. Officials added that voters could avoid confusion by proving their citizenship before learning that proof was required.

The Supreme Court had not ruled by August 14, leaving millions of Americans exposed to the grave possibility that their properly completed ballots might be delivered, counted and treated as votes. Democracy, the administration has established, is safest when eligible voters are prevented from voting.

* None of the quotes in this article were spoken by an actual person. More info.