Not all the legal hurdles have been cleared, but Hawaii officials — and the public at large — should breathe a bit easier now about the stability of the midterm elections that loom only a few short months away. In the past week, two federal district judges and, on Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court, weighed in on key cases governing mail-in voting.
The tumult stemmed from legal disputes around the country between states that run elections and the Trump administration, which has sought to exert more control at the federal level.
Under the U.S. Constitution, the executive branch has no role in elections, though Congress is empowered to pass national rules. At this point, the bill favored by President Donald Trump, the SAVE Act, would make many changes in election law — but does not have the votes in the Senate to pass.
In the meantime, the president had issued executive orders in an effort to implement his policy preferences against mail-in balloting, both of which have been challenged in court, cases that Hawaii has joined in the opposition. Both of those executive orders were struck down last week, although the Trump administration has indicated it would appeal.
One of these decisions, issued June 22 from the Washington, D.C., district court, blocked the administration’s “haphazard” creation of a voter screening database, an effort to purge noncitizens from voter rolls. That would’ve required states to turn over voter lists to create that database, and would assign the U.S. Postal Service to refuse the delivery of mail-in ballots to any voter not in the database.
U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan rightly ruled that the creation of the database, assembling personal data that states gather for various government functions, amounts to constructing illegal voter surveillance.
Then on Wednesday, a lawsuit filed in Boston by multiple state attorneys general drew a permanent block from U.S. District Judge Denise Casper against an executive order requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, and putting restrictions on mail-in voting. Casper properly rejected the president’s assertion of “widespread illegal voting” by noncitizens, fraud and other
violations.
Finally, on Monday, the nation’s high court, in a 5-4 decision, greenlit a Mississippi law that allows late-arriving ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted. The administration had argued that those votes should be discarded.
In the majority decision written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the court found that federal laws establish a single Election Day as a deadline for votes to be cast but “leave open when those votes must be received.” For the executive branch to unilaterally try to preempt the federal laws is overstepping.
This case would not have affected Hawaii directly, because this state is among those requiring that all ballots must be in the hands of the state vote-counting authorities by the close of polls on Election Day.
What’s encouraging, however, is that it sends an important signal that the high court is inclined to hew closely to the Constitution, according control of election to state and federal laws, not the chief executive.
The Founders had a completely rational basis for this arrangement. U.S. elections are secure, in large part because they are run as 50 separate elections, making it difficult for any single power to seize control.
All of this ought to underscore arguments against the SAVE Act, especially given such a tight time frame before fall’s midterm elections. There is no evidence of substantial fraud in voting. More likely, a federal crackdown now would deny legitimate voters their access to the ballot.
And that must not be tolerated. America celebrates its freedoms this week and must hold fast to its democratic principles — this one above all.
