The Trump Justice Department is undermining the ability of people to vote, said Brenda Wright, the vice president of policy and legal strategies at Demos, which is representing the plaintiffs in the Ohio case.
“Yesterday, the Department of Justice abandoned this principled position that it has held for decades through three presidencies,” Wright said in a statement. “By reversing course and choosing to stand with Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted and his practice of purging countless eligible Ohioans from the rosters, the DOJ has confirmed many peoples’ worst fears that it will no longer work to protect and expand the right to vote, but instead undermine it.” [...]
Stuart Naifeh, a Demos lawyer representing the plaintiffs in the case, said the Justice Department was reversing a position it had held for over two decades.
“The Justice Department has undermined its own credibility by changing positions in the same case,” he said. “The Justice Department has taken a position consistent with our position since the NVRA was passed. They tried to downplay that in their brief.”