STATE OF CALIFORNIA; COMMONWEALTH OF
MASSACHUSETTS; STATE OF NEVADA; STATE
OF WASHINGTON; STATE OF ARIZONA; STATE
OF COLORADO; STATE OF CONNECTICUT;
STATE OF DELAWARE; DISTRICT OF
COLUMBIA; STATE OF ILLINOIS; STATE OF
MAINE; STATE OF MARYLAND; STATE OF
MICHIGAN; STATE OF MINNESOTA; STATE OF
NEW JERSEY; STATE OF NEW MEXICO; STATE
OF NEW YORK; STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA;
STATE OF OREGON; STATE OF RHODE
ISLAND; STATE OF VERMONT;
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA; STATE OF
WISCONSIN; JOSH SHAPIRO, in his official
capacity as Governor of the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania,
Plaintiffs,
v.
DONALD J. TRUMP

President Donald Trump's executive order demanding states put new procedures in place for mail-in voting and turn over information about who is voting by mail is almost certain to be struck down in court, Jim Saksa wrote for Democracy Docket on Friday — but that's not the only way it could derail Trump's ambitions.

That's because this order could also undermine one of the main arguments Trump's Justice Department has used in court to defend the lawsuits filed against dozens of states to seize their voting rolls.

"In those lawsuits, the DOJ has claimed it needs millions of voters’ private sensitive data in order to ensure the states are complying with federal laws that require states to take steps to ensure accurate rolls," said the report. "But outside of court, DOJ officials like Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon have undermined that claim by boasting that the state voter records they’ve already obtained have been used to verify citizenship status using the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program."

After judges began ruling against the lawsuits on these grounds, DOJ officials backpedaled somewhat and said there was no plan to help the Department of Homeland Security build a national database of voters.

Trump, however, may have blown that excuse by outright acknowledging in his executive order that he "directs DHS to create a nationwide voter registration database," noted the report.

"Along with Dhillon’s statements and Trump’s orders, the DOJ’s courtroom attestations have been impeached repeatedly," wrote Saksa. For example, "last week, CBS reported that DOJ and DHS were working to formalize a data-sharing agreement for the voter rolls. And on the same day Tucker was assuring a federal judge that the DOJ wouldn’t share state records with DHS, Eric Neff, acting chief of the DOJ’s Voting Rights Section, admitted to another judge in Rhode Island that they, in fact, would."