Latest / GNN Daily Breaking News / Trump has no designs on taking over state elections, US attorney general says

Transcript

Trump has no designs on taking over state elections, US attorney general says · GNN Daily Breaking News

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Attorney General Todd Blanch has rejected accusations that President Donald
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Trump intends to assume federal control over state-administered election processes,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: maintaining that ongoing Justice Department litigation is focused strictly on
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: enforcing existing federal statutes. Appearing on Sunday news programs, Blanch
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: defended recent federal lawsuits targeting voter registration rolls and state
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: certification protocols. arguing that administrative interventions aim to preserve electoral
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: integrity rather than override state constitutional authority. The Attorney General's
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: comments come amid heightened scrutiny from state election officials and
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: legal experts as the nation prepares for the November 3rd
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: midterm elections. The administration's legal strategy has drawn sharp pushback
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: following high-profile lawsuits filed in critical battleground states. In Alaska,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: The Justice Department filed an unprecedented lawsuit seeking to block
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: state election authorities from automatically certifying the results of its
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: contested U.S. Senate race. Additionally, federal prosecutors recently argued before
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: force California officials to segregate thousands of mail-in ballots prior
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: to final vote tabulations. Democratic state attorneys general and nonpartisan
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: voting rights coalitions have denounced the filings, accusing the White
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: House of using federal law enforcement mechanisms to create administrative
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: pretexts for challenging adverse midterm outcomes. Addressing concerns over the
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: planned deployment of roughly 1,000 federal election monitors to polling
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: locations nationwide, Blanch insisted that executive branch actions remain within
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: historical statutory boundaries. The Attorney General stated that federal monitors
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: are assigned solely to observe compliance with civil rights laws
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: and verify voter identification protocols, rejecting claims that federal personnel
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: would interfere with local ballot counting. However, state election officers
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: in several jurisdictions continue to contest federal access to polling sites,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: asserting that state law governs precinct administration and vote-counting procedures
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: under the United States Constitution. The debate over federal authority
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: underscores the intense political polarization surrounding the final week of
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: the midterm campaign cycle. With early voting underway and control
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: of both houses of Congress hanging in the balance, the
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: dynamic between federal prosecutors and state election administrators remains a
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: central flashpoint. Legal experts anticipate further emergency filings as federal
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: courts evaluate the scope of executive oversight before state certification
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: deadlines take effect.