The Supreme Court’s decision allowing the federal government to use an expansive, federally created database to determine whether voters are eligible to vote was rendered on the emergency docket, unsigned and pretty much without much of any legal analysis.
Until 25 years ago, this emergency docket was used almost exclusively for last-minute appeals to stop executions of people convicted of capital crimes.
No longer.
This docket has been used way too often by the Trump administration and this court to issue orders that are favorable to the administration without any signatures, or legal analysis.
Under Chief Justice John Roberts’ court, this administration has been given substantial benefit of the doubt and increased executive authority.
One would argue that there is hardly any irreparable harm caused to the government when the government is acting in a fashion that is unconstitutional. The constitution leaves the regulation of elections to the states.
The Supreme Court doesn’t see it that way.
Basically, it determined that the plaintiffs would not likely prevail on the merits of their privacy claim, claims that using government data as this database contains is a violation of social security and other agency privacy laws.
The decision, dissented to by three liberal justices, allows the federal government to impose its will on the state governments who are responsible for voting regulations.
It will do this by using its expansive federally created data base to determine whether voters are eligible or ineligible to vote.
One has to severely, severely, question the accuracy and completeness of a federal database completed for this purpose, and particularly by this administration.
The federal government has no experience in compiling such a database, and the motives of this administration are reprehensible.
FBI Director Kash Patel has already established voter integrity units in all district FBI offices, ostensibly to monitor or even interfere with the election process in those districts.
I have a feeling that the administration’s purpose is to use this decision that gives it the ability to use this database to create doubt and chaos over the election results that it knows will be a sweeping blue win.
However, and this is important, the National Voting Registration act does prohibit purges within 90 days prior to elections and we are within that 90 days, so the midterms ought to be free of this interference.
The court specifically mentioned this Act, so one would think that if the administration attempts to interfere, the court will enforce the Act, unless it can conjure up some hyper technical reason not to do so.
Jim Astrachan is lawyer who represents clients in intellectual property law and litigation, mediation, and business, regulatory, and transactional matters. He’s a Life Fellow of the Baltimore City Bar Foundation, the Maryland Bar Foundation, and the American Bar Foundation.