The Trump administration on Monday petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to ignore the Constitution and allow the implementation of an executive order that would severely restrict voting by mail nationwide. Even high school civics students know elections are the dominion of the states, but President Donald Trump naturally believes that power should be his.
It’s the latest evidence of the president’s desperation about the upcoming midterm elections and polling that suggests an electorate that favors Democrats heading into the fall. Rather than try to win back support or curb the policies that have fueled Americans’ anger, Trump wants to impose his will on the election process.
The court should not let him, and election officials — in Virginia and across the nation — must continue to hold the line against these baseless, unconstitutional attacks on our democracy.
On July 16, Trump delivered a prime-time address in which he uncorked a stream of familiar lies about the integrity of American elections. He repeated his disproven claims about winning the 2020 election (he did not) and tried to hype previously released documents about foreign influence campaigns as some type of bombshell (they were not).
The president outlined efforts by China to obtain U.S. voter files before the 2020 election, but that has been widely documented. In fact, many states maintain their voter information in publicly available files.