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ACLU Takes Legal Action Over Trump Election Commission Executive Order

Shard

XBLAnnoyance
https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-takes-legal-action-over-trump-election-commission-executive-order

May 11, 2017

NEW YORK — The American Civil Liberties Union took legal action today related to President Trump’s new executive order establishing a “Presidential Commission on Election Integrity.” The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act “FOIA” request seeking information that the Trump administration is using as the basis for its voter fraud claims. The commission vice chair is Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, whom the American Civil Liberties Union has successfully sued numerous times over voter suppression policies.

Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, had this reaction to the executive order:

“President Trump is attempting to spread his own fake news about election integrity. Such claims have been widely debunked, but he is still trying to push his false reality on the American public. It is telling that the president’s choice to co-lead the commission is none other than Kris Kobach, one of the worst offenders of voter suppression in the nation today. If the Trump administration really cares about election integrity, it will divulge its supposed evidence before embarking on this commission boondoggle.”
 

Mahonay

Banned
Fucking AWESOME. They saw this obvious voter suppression nonsense coming from a mile away.

Time to show my love to the ACLU once again with some $$
 

DietRob

i've been begging for over 5 years.
The FOIA request is going to return with some dudes Twitter account as the basis for his evidence of voter fraud.
 
Oh Good, I wasn't expecting any lawsuits until the Commission actually started suggesting and submitting things to pass. I guess getting on it early is good strategy, making this administration defend things seems to be their poison in court

EDIT: The fact that they have successfully sued the guy being primed to head this is a good sign.
 
ACLU is just trolling Kobach some more:

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/kansasc...ews/politics-government/article149757479.html

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has lost his appeal and has been ordered to turn over documents from his meeting with President Donald Trump to the ACLU by Friday.

U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson on Wednesday upheld an earlier order from a federal magistrate judge requiring Kobach to hand over the documents to the American Civil Liberties Union as part of an ongoing voting rights lawsuit against his office.

Robinson, who is based in Kansas City, Kan., was appointed by President George W. Bush.

Kobach met with Trump in November and was photographed carrying a document labeled as a strategic plan for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The photograph revealed a reference to voting rolls. The ACLU has sought access to the documents, contending that if Kobach lobbied Trump on changes to federal voting law, it would be relevant to the case.

OKYeHOp.jpg
 
So are the ACLU lawyers just on standby at this point? Is there a Trump Signal they light? Do they host contests over who can write the most scathing claim?
 
Yes, it is a literal legal action.


I don't see it that way. It's a request, which merely has an existing law supporting the ability to make that request. Making the request isn't a legal action in itself. It's not really significantly different than asking someone "Hey bro, what's that all about?"

And it's kind of better to get ahead of this obvious suppression technique as much as possible rather than wait until after 2018 elections.

I'd say it is step one of a potentially longer legal process, so yes.

One step, sure. But not a "legal action."
 

Blader

Member
I don't see it that way. It's a request, which merely has an existing law supporting the ability to make that request. Making the request isn't a legal action in itself. It's not really significantly different than asking someone "Hey bro, what's that all about?"

It's the legal way of asking that question.
 
It's the legal way of asking that question.

Sure, it's the legal way of asking it.
I still wouldn't view it as a "legal action."

Put another way - all the people acting all happy over this, there's nothing to be excited over or anything. It's literally just asking for information. Nothing is going to happen as an immediate result of this. It would take actual legal action for anything to happen.
 
Sure, it's the legal way of asking it.
I still wouldn't view it as a "legal action."

Put another way - all the people acting all happy over this, there's nothing to be excited over or anything. It's literally just asking for information. Nothing is going to happen as an immediate result of this. It would take actual legal action for anything to happen.

I think it is a point that makes little sense to clarify. No action has been taken, nobody harmed yet/rights violated - so yeah literally nothing has been filed in court. But this is a legal request and a method to gather information behind the President of the US putting out in an official capacity the notion that there is widespread voter fraud in the US.

It's a formal, legal request to gather information. Just like a lot of legal proceedings begin with.
 
I think it is a point that makes little sense to clarify.

I guess I just view it as one being worth noting.
If others don't and want to call this "taking legal action" - well, I would imagine they actually plan on something beyond this happening, not them merely asking for the information, and when they get it going "Alright, thanks."
 
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