Trump Signs Order To Rig Future Elections For Republicans

Donald Trump signed an order this week that could dramatically reshape American elections by disenfranchising millions of American voters. Among other things, the order requires that people prove that they are citizens instead of being able to present a simple ID to register. It also changes the way that votes are counted and how long they can be counted, which could result in millions of ballots being tossed out every election. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains what’s happening and what it could do.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Donald Trump signed an executive order this week that number one, he had no authority to sign, but number two would basically rig future elections to help Republicans win. This sweeping change that Donald Trump has instituted via executive order effectively changes the way that states are allowed to conduct their own elections by adding additional rules for them, which again, constitutionally he's not allowed to do. States are allowed via the United States Constitution to come up with their own rules for elections. Their own means to determine eligibility, the manner in which they conduct elections, the manner in which they collect the ballots. States have that authority. But Donald Trump, via executive order on Tuesday, is attempting to us serp that power in order to make it more difficult to vote. One of the things that is in this executive order, well, let me just read it. It, uh, directs the US Election Assistance Commission, the EAC and agency created by Congress to require eligible voters to provide documentary proof of their citizenship when registering through a federal registration form.

Now, the change would prevent Americans who lack easy access to documents such as passports from registering to vote through the National Mail voter registration form, which was originally created to make registering to vote more accessible. So if you do not have a passport, which millions of Americans, most of us do not, I don't. And if you do not have access to your documents, which I know Republicans may be watching and thinking, well, if you don't have your documents, clearly you're illegal. Why do you not have your documents? Let me tell you a little story. About 10 years ago, I had to go renew my driver's license, and because it had been, you know, X amount of years since my driver's license was issued, I had to do it in person. I couldn't just do it online. So I went in there to renew my license and they're like, Hey, where's your documentation?

Like you gotta have your birth certificate, your bills, blah, blah, blah. So went back home, got that stuff, went in there and they said, well, your name on your birth certificate is not the same name on your license. Because when I was about one and a half years old, my mom got remarried and we all changed our last name, but I didn't have those name changed documents because that was done via a court in Alabama in the 1980s. It then took me weeks, weeks and hundreds of dollars to track down the court and pay for those documents to have them shipped down here so that I could then go update my driver's license, which I legally had to do obviously. Now, if I would've had to do that for something that is a right but is also technically voluntary, like registering to vote, I probably wouldn't have done it to be perfectly honest.

I would not have gone through that hassle, but I had to for my license, so I did it. So, yeah, when you say like, why do you not have your documents? I didn't even know I had to have that document. I didn't even know such a document existed. I've been, you know, using this name because it's my name, it's my family for my whole life, essentially. I didn't know I had to have that. So yes, there are millions of people probably in similar situations with whatever document it is that they, from their childhood before they could even form memories that they may not know they needed. Maybe their parents had it, maybe their parents passed and all their stuff went away. Maybe it got destroyed in a storm or a flood, maybe it just got lost over the years.