Ahead of the Election… Are Trump’s Measures Narrowing the Right to Vote?

Al-Taj News – Just two months before the US midterm elections, President Donald Trump wants to tighten voting rules by requiring proof of citizenship and voter identity and eliminating voting by mail, asserting that these measures are sufficient to ensure “fair elections.”

But American lawyer and human rights advocate Reed Brody sees a different goal behind these measures, accusing Trump and Republicans of attempting to suppress voting and undermine the electoral process, and of creating uncertainty around its rules that could later open the door to challenging the results.

Brody said in an interview with Al Jazeera that Trump and Republicans “are not very popular,” and that they are doing everything they can to suppress voting and undermine the electoral process.

“Nonexistent” Problem

Part of the debate centers on non-citizen voting, which Brody says the new measures are supposed to address, but he questions whether it exists on a scale that warrants such measures.

He said that voting by non-citizens is already a felony in the United States, that it occurs rarely, and that the issue “is not about fraud,” but rather about executive control over a matter that the Constitution has placed in the hands of the states.