The US Supreme Court is reportedly set to gut core provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a landmark law that prohibited racial discrimination in the voting process. Urging the court to act is the America First Legal Foundation, a nonprofit public interest law firm cofounded in 2021 by top Trump adviser Stephen Miller.
At the same time, the firm is urging the US Election Assistance Commission, which oversees national voter registration forms, to institute a nationwide policy requiring voters to show proof of citizenship to vote.
Miller’s firm has received millions from conservative dark money groups that have historically funded causes to gut consumer protections and limit voting access, a Lever review has found. The Bradley Impact Fund, a conservative donor-advised fund linked to the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, donated more than $27.4 million to Miller’s firm from 2021 to 2022. Donors Trust, a dark money group connected to conservative mastermind Leonard Leo, gave more than $3.3 million from 2021 to 2023.
America First also received a $1.5 million donation from the Rydin Foundation, a charity connected to a conservative donor who gave $25 million to the Conservative Partnership Institute — a nonprofit that plays a crucial role in Trump’s administration as a “breeding ground for the next generation of Trump loyalists and an incubator for policies he might pursue.”
Earlier this year, Miller’s America First Legal Foundation petitioned the Election Assistance Commission to amend its regulations and National Mail Voter Registration form to require “documentary proof of United States citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.”
The firm alleges that the form doesn’t “require any verification that applicants are telling the truth,” and pushes largely overblown claims that hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants have registered to vote nationwide. However, there are already laws making it illegal to lie on these forms.
Miller’s firm’s petition is opposed by a number of voting rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union. In its letter on the matter, the Fair Elections Center says that the petition could disqualify millions of eligible voters who lack documentary proof of citizenship and quotes former conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s insistence “that a simple means of registering to vote in federal elections will be available.”
Additionally, the nonprofit Issue One highlighted how the petition would impose significant costs on underfunded election offices nationwide.
“The proposed requirement is unnecessary, costly, legally questionable, and unworkable. It would impose significant unfunded mandates on state and local election officials, place them at greater legal risk, and introduce new implementation challenges that threaten election readiness and public trust in elections,” the group wrote.
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