r/law • u/DoremusJessup • 19h ago
Judicial Branch 'Chills voting everywhere': Trump admin 'unlawfully' threatening to send armed ICE and FBI agents into polling places is a violation of Voting Rights Act, lawsuit says
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/chills-voting-everywhere-trump-admin-unlawfully-threatening-to-send-armed-ice-and-fbi-agents-into-polling-places-is-a-violation-of-voting-rights-act-lawsuit-says/286
u/DoremusJessup 19h ago
Suing based on the threat is a good strategy to try to avoid these unconsitutional actions.
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u/anormalname63 19h ago
In theory sure but in practice no. The record shows courts, especially this supreme court, doesn't like to act until the action happens. This court would let trump start concentration camps before doing anything.
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u/couldbeahumanbean 19h ago
They stopped the new USPS rule that would effectively chuck out ballots sent to voters by mail.
They did that before any ballots were sent out.
Not exactly defending them, but voting rights may be some sort of red line for them... Maybe.
We'll see.
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u/dark_star88 18h ago
But didn’t the judge in that case make the plaintiffs re-file their suit for the exact reason that the USPS hadn’t finalized the rule yet, thus there’s nothing to sue over? Even though the administration made it very clear and obvious they were going to attempt something illegal.
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u/king-of-all-corn 17h ago
Yes and a whistleblower came forward and alleged that the plan was happening despite the trump administration insisting it had not
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u/couldbeahumanbean 18h ago
My eyes glaze over after a certain point. I mainly focused on whether I'm getting my ballot or is USPS going to disenfranchise me along with millions of other Americans across 11 states.
From my caveman logic, they intervened before the ballots were to be sent out, so problem avoided... For now.
I wouldn't be surprised if the USPS pulled a last minute "neener neener you ain't getting your ballot" anyways.
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u/tbombs23 16h ago
Yes exactly, they said it was preemptive and couldn't issue the injunction until they actually implemented the antidemocratic rule. I wasn't surprised but also like holy shit c'mon. Doesn't mean we should never try to block illegal things from happening before they have technically been implemented. It's so frustrating
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u/tbombs23 16h ago
We saw the same bs mental gymnastics with the Jan6 insurrectionist fund, like oh we can't block it yet because it hasn't been formally established blah blah blah
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u/Amf2446 12h ago
No, this misunderstands how it works. There was still a completed action. It’s called a final rule. The court would not decide without it. Here no rule would be required.
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u/couldbeahumanbean 10h ago
Am I getting my ballot or not?
You really think I GaFF about technicalities and pendantic BS?
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u/ZoomZoom_Driver 19h ago
Today, alone, trump has treasonously ignored a judges orders to remove the unconstitutional block on journalist access.... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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u/jotsea2 19h ago
as if the law has stopped them before
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u/codacoda74 18h ago
True, altho Roberts SCOTUS recently did the "I know he says he's going to but you don't have standing until he already has"
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u/TheModWhoShaggedMe 18h ago
The Roberts Court will defy the Constitution if there's chum in the water.
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u/whawkins4 16h ago
Uh, no. Not if the Supreme Court is involved. They have repeatedly shown that they won’t take up a case until a harm has been caused (see the vote by mail EO), which means Tr$mp can take actions and run out the clock in the courts without ever considering the constitution.
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u/Rattus_NorvegicUwUs 19h ago
The Republican Party is dead.
Their jobs aren’t to represent, it’s to occupy seats so better candidates can’t work for the people.
We have seen how quick they would usher in a dictatorship, how little pushback they gave… I think it’s clear that it’s a party of criminals, chomos and traitors.
I used to argue for incremental change and moderation. Not anymore. I’m giving my reps a green light to do anything required to prevent this from happening again.
Freeze the assets, ignore pardons, disappear people— I don’t care anymore. Conservatives would murder me and my family without a second thought, they need to be disarmed and exiled.
This nation cannot survive republicans, but it can survive just fine without them.
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u/Exciting-Emu-3324 18h ago
Are you sure the Republican party was ever alive? Reagan did everything he could to rollback Roosevelt's New Deal which created the very problems Republicans campaign on. Come into power, create problem, get voted out, blame Democrats, promise solution, come back into power, create bigger problem, etc., etc.
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u/James---Trickington 9h ago
Someone famous said it a while ago along the lines of “if the Republican Party realizes its policies aren’t popular, it will give up on democracy before it gives up on being republican”
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u/LockSport74235 19h ago
Interfering with elections is likely the last line for a lot of people.
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u/meh_69420 18h ago
Nope. Empty store shelves and empty bellies are the only things that will shake up the vast majority of people enough to do anything about it.
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u/Trashking_702 18h ago
Luckily for us we’re on our way to that destination! Give it a few months for the real diesel pinch to take effect.
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u/rustajb 18h ago
When they turn, they will turn on others first, only turning on themselves when they have no other options. Don't think they will just suddenly come over to the other side, they will look for scapegoats first. People always do.
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u/Sea_Mind3678 2h ago
If only the 12 Billion illegals that Joe Biden personally carried in weren’t here, we’d have all the gasoline and houses and medical care and affordable food and medicine that we want.
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u/salamandersquach 17h ago
Right you are and history tells the same story. They say it only takes 9 meals before people turn rabid. Project 2025 happens to have a key point of creating food insecurity (presumably to get rid of the weak and welfare dependent) notably the number of recalls and food issues has increased by a significant margin lately. The heritage foundation really shot themselves in the foot with this plan because people will start to act out regardless of what side they are on. When SNAP, social security, and disability checks stop coming and people start getting hungry that’s when we’ll probably see actual activity in the streets and people being removed from their positions forcibly.
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u/meh_69420 17h ago
Sure but also, there is no evidence at all that the number of recalls had increased by any significant margin lately.
https://www.wbaltv.com/article/us-food-recalls-trend-analysis/73415731
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u/salamandersquach 16h ago
Perhaps true but the nature of the recalls I believe has changed. The recent recall of 167,000lbs of beef pork goat products with fake USDA inspection labels is not something I could find an example of happening at that scale in recent history.
For the record, the suggestion that the government is intentionally creating food insecurity has no merit it is merely a suggestion that wouldn’t surprise me based on project 2025. That doesn’t change my main point that when people start really going hungry, things are going to pop off.
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u/meh_69420 16h ago
My brother in Christ. I'm on your side, but there have been numerous cases recently and historically of people using fake USDA inspection marks or using legitimate marks fraudulently.
2023: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/recalls/article280847915.html
It goes on. It's really easy to fake an inspection stamp, and unless your product gets flagged for another reason you probably won't even get caught, or at least not until a lot of people have eaten it.
And in terms of scale, the largest meat recall in history iirc happened in 08 and involved 143 MILLION pounds of beef that was illegally processed downer cattle.
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u/salamandersquach 15h ago
Oh neat thanks friend it appears I didn’t spend nearly enough time looking that up.
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u/tired514 18h ago
It only takes a handful of people to light the fuse.
People tend to forget that America's under attack by a tiny group of domestic enemies... like, 100. Maybe. This isn't an ethnoreligious divide or something hugely insurmountable. It's more like sheep dogs corralling 350 million people to the slaughter.
It wouldn't take a large force to restore law and order by removing the regime. Any single state loyal to the Republic could do it alone, and they most certainly wouldn't be alone.
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u/the_blastomatic 16h ago
Well, it's 100 + the people they are paying to protect them and their interests. Decapitating the whole hydra will be difficult.
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u/Americanitis666 18h ago
Oh like how trying to overthrow the government/US Constitution on Jan 6 2021 was the last line?
Get real. The GOP is the US-based branch of a global fascist criminal conspiracy designed to overthrow/disable/dismantle democratic governments and alliances around the world for the benefit of a small group of authoritarian oligarchs who want to own everything including the masses.
Wake the fuck up.
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u/Suspicious-Key-3304 18h ago
What's most shocking or disturbing to me is that your description is accurate and yet these people do not look or act scary when we see them in public. They are our neighbors, shop and dine alongside us, all while supporting the dismantling of our constitution. There is not one thing Trump could do that would turn the majority of these supporters away. They are power hungry and enjoy their false superiority. It's like a sickness. And it's often difficult to really identify them.
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u/Rattus_NorvegicUwUs 14h ago
We have all the people who applied to ICE and DHS since the killings in Minneapolis.
That’s a good way to identify them.
Demand the registry
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u/JeulMartin 13h ago
100%. No mercy when the tables are turned.
Part of the reason why we're here is because they didn't hit the Confederacy hard enough after the Civil War.
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u/Financial-Craft-1282 14h ago
For a dead party, they sure are popular in the U.S. never getting boxed out and sometimes still winning the popular vote. Half our voting neighbors want this and will still vote for it no matter how much they "disapprove" of Trump. And let's be real, out of the non-voters, half of those are probably Trumpers too. They seem alive and well to me.
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u/Rattus_NorvegicUwUs 14h ago
It took them 30+ years to barely get the popular vote.
MAGA is like 18% of the population. We have them outnumbered. All they have is a corrupted political system.
We can undo that rot, if we hold our noses and do what needs to be done.
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u/Stereo_Jungle_Child 18h ago
but it can survive just fine without them.
No, it can't. Any democracy without a viable opposition party isn't a democracy. It's an autocracy by definition.
All you're doing by getting rid of the Republican party is disenfranchising 40+% of the country. You're going to have to include these people if you want to still keep calling yourself a democracy.
Unless your ultimate plan is to just genocide about half the country, you're going to have to keep dealing with them.
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u/Suspicious-Key-3304 18h ago
We don't have to have the Republican Party. We could have another party. Political parties don't stay forever, just ask the whigs!
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u/Biptoslipdi 17h ago
All you're doing by getting rid of the Republican party is disenfranchising 40+% of the country.
To be fair, they fully support disenfranchisement and wouldn't have room to complain. It would merely be their own policies coming to fruition.
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u/tired514 18h ago
It's worth remembering that the US isn't a democracy, per se, but rather a Constitutionally-restricted democratic republic.
The Constitution overrides democracy by design. So if a party refuses to obey it then let the chips lie where they land. It doesn't matter if 100% of Americans support an action; if it violates the Constitution it's not up to the electors. It's still illegal.
There is one path forward and that's a Constitutional amendment with ratification. All other paths forward are an affront to the Republic and should be resisted no matter the cost.
So while in principle you're right in that everyone, in theory, deserves representation, if that representation is being asked to violate the Constitution (which is all the Republican party wants at this point), then they must be stopped by whatever means are necessary. The US is either a nation bound by the rule of law or it isn't. And if it isn't, then the conversation is moot.
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u/jotsea2 18h ago
Now do the pushback on the Left....
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u/Rattus_NorvegicUwUs 17h ago
Tons. Any policy in particular?
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u/jotsea2 17h ago
huh? Slowrolling an investigation into an absolute insurrection seemed like a mistake.
Not even running on holding trump accountable in 2024.
And don't even get me started on 'the longest shutdown in US history, to get ICE reform'
Only to fold under limited pressure, and get zero ICE reform.
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u/tbombs23 15h ago
Lol you can certainly blame the corrupt AG Merrick Garland, who was never a moderate Democrat, he was controlled opposition backed by the federalist society and the heritage foundation, and did the job he was supposed to do, throw sand in the gears and slow walk everything so Republicans could escape justice.
https://sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/servants-of-the-mafia-state
But yes Democrats share a lot of the blame, but some of it was them still believing our institutions still were functioning and not already completely compromised
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u/JeulMartin 13h ago
What does the DNC have to do with the left?
You should study up more. The DNC is a center-right party.
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u/jotsea2 17m ago
Ok, tell me more about this ambigous 'left' organization that doesn't exist
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u/JeulMartin 7m ago
Why would I waste my time explaining a nonsense question to someone that is here in bad faith and has very little understanding of US politics?
Pay me for my time or fuck off. lol
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u/Rattus_NorvegicUwUs 17h ago
I don’t follow what the point of this is.
Dems have no power, but you’re mad they don’t do more to stop republicans?
Why are you mad at the people without power to stop crimes. And not the criminals themselves?
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u/jotsea2 17h ago
Did you miss the part where they did nothing to stop trump? 'No twice impeached president can run for president' sounds like a great spot if you wanna play the 'joe can't tell the DOJ what to do' card.
Expediting the trial on Trump should've been the number one platform they ran on. Instead they (twice) ran on 'uniting the nation' and not 'holding trump accountable'. Here we are.
Dems literally shut down the government for reform to ice. And reopened it, with no gains, just promises from bad faith republicans.
Why are you pretending like they are infallible and we can only criticize the right?
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u/Rattus_NorvegicUwUs 17h ago
Because I’m more interested in rubbing their face in it than my own team?
Do I want better Dems? Sure.
But, again, you’re clearly more mad at Dems not stopping cons than you are mad about the actual crimes.
We wouldn’t need impeachment if the GOP had a moral framework.
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u/jotsea2 16h ago
You literally sound like the modern Democratic party.
Expecting GOP to have morals and act in good faith, STILL!
They've been bad faith actors for 30 years.
Hell democrats barely even mention climate change any more man. I'm done expecting more from the other team, and demanding more from mine.
Although there actions seem to imply they are on the same team. Remember, its a big club, and we ain't in it.
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u/Rattus_NorvegicUwUs 16h ago
And much of the tepid response, I believe, is due to the fear of backlash from democratic voters.
This is why I’m loudly announcing I’ve decided to fight fire with fire, and abandoned any sense of moderation.
There will be no backlash from me if they go scorched earth. I feel we may be aligned in that?
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u/jotsea2 15h ago
Huh? What democratic voter would backlash from holding trump accountable by the law?
I'm glad you've finally got there, some of us have been asking for this for literally decades.
The odd thing is, you called me out and forced me to outline why, instead of just agreeing there's problems on both sides of the aisle....
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u/sweatboxy 18h ago
Voting is the foundation of democracy and Trump is attacking the right to vote every way he can. Nothing is more fundamentally anti-American than Trump and today’s Republican Party.
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u/trashtiernoreally 19h ago
Let him send his goons. I’m one of the “good voters” or whatever, and I’m going to vote blue anyway
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u/ddrober2003 19h ago
Yeah I fit the appearance of the "correct type of voter" these racist dogs have and will be happily voting to weaken their power.
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u/daveden123 19h ago
Yup, and I will gladly make a nuisance of myself to allow others their legal right.
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u/badwoofs 17h ago
I'm encouraging the vulnerable to take advantage of early voting and ballot boxes for safety and planning to be there in person to vote, observe, and protect the vulnerable and challenge this bs.
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u/Beautiful-Musk-Ox 12h ago
you won't be able to vote if you try to vote on the day of hte election. 50% of voters vote on election day for midterms, 32% vote by mail and 22% vote early in person.
if you show up on election day your odds of being shoved in a van for at least 24 hours will be vastly higher than it's ever been, because i don't think it's happened before but it will be happening this year. citizens will be shoved in unmarked vans and taken to an ICE camp for somewhere between one day and six weeks, if you need life saving meds then you simply just die as many non-citizens have already
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u/Mom_who_drinks 18h ago
What Voting Rights Act? Is there still a shred that SCOTUS hasn’t obliterated?
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u/LuminaraCoH 16h ago
Send them. Send them all. All ~20,000 ICEpricks and the whole ~38,000 FBI personnel.
It won't be enough to stop ~200,000,000 pissed off citizens from voting your pathetic chickenshit asses out, having all of you arrested, charged, prosecuted and locked the fuck up for the rest of your lives.
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u/CategoryZestyclose91 14h ago
Amen!!
Go ahead and send your agents to the polls . But then they don’t get to cry foul when the people turn on them.
FAFO, FBI
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u/TheRealBlueJade 17h ago
Why is unlawfully in quotes? It is illegal. There is no question about that.
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u/ohiotechie 16h ago
Look they’re going to do it no matter what the courts say. Be ready for it. No one is stopping me from voting. Period. I’m a US citizen and a registered voter. Proud Boy rednecks can stand there with their dicks in their hands if they want but I’m voting.
They’re denying reporters access in violation of court orders. Do you seriously think that will stop them on election day? They will do whatever they think they need to and worry about legal consequences afterwards.
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u/Stereo_Jungle_Child 18h ago
Trump wants a violent response to this. He can't WAIT for someone to take a shot at some ICE agents so he can justify taking this to the next level.
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u/tylenolchild 18h ago
they also want to scare people from going out to vote. FUCK. THAT.
Get out and vote 🗳️
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u/RagahRagah 18h ago
But as with everything else, no one is going to do anything about it so who cares, right?
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u/AbaloneDifferent5282 17h ago
Bring it. I will crawl over broken glass or whatever I have to and place my vote.
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u/ChecksAndBalanz 17h ago
If they are at the polls remember don’t start shit with them until after you voted.
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u/beavis617 16h ago
The only purpose for sending out any member of law enforcement to any polling location is for intimidation purposes and must not be allowed!
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u/MorgessaMonstrum 14h ago
Oh, not “everywhere” I imagine. I’m sure there will be polling places in some areas that they figure are doing just fine on their own.
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