这凸显了一个鲜为人知的故事，讲述特朗普如何改变法律——或法律如何反击——并让您了解《Slate》法学团队的最新动态。
that highlights one under-the-radar story about how Trump is changing the law—or how the law is pushing back—and keeps you posted on the latest from Slate’s Jurisprudence team.
距离11月的中期选举仅剩数日，司法部本周以发动其迄今最绝望、最不专业的攻击美国选举制度的行动作为收尾。周四，司法部提起了一项荒谬的诉讼，试图阻止宣布阿拉斯加联邦参议员选举的获胜者，直到法院重新审理其中一名候选人的资格。同一天，司法部还大胆试图抢先将加利福尼亚州的一起选举案件推至上级法院，而下级法院甚至还没有机会举行听证会。
With just days to go before November’s midterms, the Department of Justice ended this week by launching its most desperate and unprofessional assaults on the American election system yet. On Thursday, the DOJ filed an absurd lawsuit seeking to block a declaration of a winner in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race until the courts relitigate the eligibility of one of its candidates. This comes the same day as an audacious DOJ effort to preemptively push a California election case to higher courts before lower courts have even had a chance to hold a hearing.
行政部门持续的选举干预，并未因在寻求未经删减的州选民名单案件中0比26全败，以及在一起本会导致本次选举邮寄投票关闭的案件中在最高法院惨败而受到遏制。从阿拉斯加到加利福尼亚，再到无人知晓的其他地方，司法部一直在提起诉讼，干预各州计票和认证选票的方式。该机构最新的举措——既缺乏事实依据，又在法律上站不住脚——表明，尽管外界担心司法部会大举出兵试图推翻选举结果，但它最有可能只是在打空包弹。
The executive branch’s continued election interference has not been deterred by going zero for 26 in cases seeking unredacted state voter lists and losing badly at the Supreme Court in a case that would have shut down mail balloting this election. From Alaska to California and who knows where else, DOJ has been filing cases to interfere with how states count and certify votes. The agency’s latest moves—as factually unsupported as they are legally vacuous—demonstrate that for all the fear about DOJ coming in with guns blazing to try to overturn the results of the elections, it is most likely to be shooting blanks.
美国司法部在涉选举诉讼中屡败，根本原因在于宪法并未赋予总统或行政部门在选举管理中扮演任何角色。该事务由各州负责，但国会可通过立法改变联邦选举规则。因此，当唐纳德·特朗普总统在二度就职后不久于2025年3月签署行政命令，试图更改联邦选民登记表格（该表格由国会强制规定），要求其须附带出生证明等公民身份证明文件时，联邦法院叫停了该命令。
The main reason that DOJ has been losing election-related lawsuits is that the Constitution does not give the president or the executive branch a role to play in running elections. That matter is left to the states, subject to congressional legislation that can alter the rules in federal elections. So when President Donald Trump issued a March 2025 executive order soon after coming back into office that would have changed the federal voter registration form (mandated by Congress) to require it be accompanied by documentary proof of citizenship like a birth certificate, a federal court shut it down.
法院裁定：“简单来说，我们的宪法不允许总统单方面更改联邦选举程序。”而当美国邮政署依据特朗普的第二项行政命令宣布一项规则，试图使该机构成为各州邮寄选票的联邦把关人时，最高法院裁定邮政署极可能在实体审理中败诉，因为其强行介入州选举程序超越了其职权。
It ruled that, “Put simply, our Constitution does not allow the President to impose unilateral changes to federal election procedures.”And when the USPS followed Trump’s second executive order by announcing a rule that would have made the agency a federal gatekeeper over state mail ballots, the Supreme Court ruled that USPS was likely to lose on the merits because its muscling into state election processes exceeds its power.
司法部在加利福尼亚州和阿拉斯加州的最新举措，甚至比其早先试图主张对选举权力的尝试还要薄弱。在加利福尼亚州，司法部要求该州及洛杉矶县核查一份包含2万人的名单，名单上列为其所谓的“可能”或“涉嫌”非公民（司法部在称呼上反复无常），将他们的邮寄选票从堆叠中取出并隔离，使其不被计数。司法部最初通过一个U盘提供信息，密码却写在便利贴上。
DOJ’s latest moves in California and Alaska are even weaker than DOJ’s earlier attempts to assert power over elections. In California, DOJ demanded that California and Los Angeles County go through a 20,000-person list of what it termed “likely” or “suspected” noncitizens (it vacillated on what to call them), take their mail-in ballots out of the pile, and segregate them so they won’t be counted. It first provided the information on a thumb drive with the password on a Post-it note.
加利福尼亚州官员抗议称，使用此类U盘将违反安全协议——你会把特朗普发的U盘插进你的电脑吗？——随后司法部改提供一份电子表格。
After California officials complained that using such a drive would breach security protocols—would you put a Trump-issued thumb drive into your PC?—they provided a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet appears to be wildly inaccurate; more than half from a sample of 200 looked at by the county were people not registered, and many were U.S.-born—a great indicator they are citizens.
该电子表格似乎极不准确；县里抽查的200个样本中，超过一半是未登记人员，且许多人出生于美国——这是他们为公民的有力佐证。这并不令人意外。正如我近期在《Slate》上所叙述：当国土安全部声称各州允许数千名非公民留在选民名册上却未提供证据时，州和地方选举管理人员要求出示证据。内华达州获得数据并进行调查后，国土安全部列出的1.6万名潜在不合格内华达州选民名单减少到了零。
This is no surprise. As I recently recounted in Slate: When the Department of Homeland Security made unsupported claims that states were allowing thousands of noncitizens to remain on their voting rolls, state and local election administrators demanded evidence. After Nevada got the data and investigated, the DHS list of 16,000 potentially ineligible Nevada voters fell to zero.
司法部的法律论据甚至比其事实主张更薄弱。司法部寻求加州给予这种非常规救济的唯一依据，是一项联邦法规，该法规规定非公民在选举中投票属于犯罪。该法规赋予联邦政府零权利告诉加州在计票方面可以或不可以做什么；事实上，另一项联邦法规《1993年全国选民登记法》禁止各州在选举前90天系统性地移除不合格选民。这是为了防止合格选民被无意中剥夺投票权。
Even weaker than DOJ’s factual claims are its legal arguments. The sole basis that DOJ relied upon in seeking this extraordinary relief from California is a federal statute that makes it a crime for a noncitizen to vote in an election. That statute gives the federal government zero right to tell California what it can or cannot do in counting ballots, and indeed, another federal statute, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, prohibits states from systematically removing ineligible voters in the 90 days before an election. That’s to prevent the inadvertent disenfranchisement of eligible voters.
尽管案件在法律和事实上都很薄弱，司法部仍请求联邦地区法院发布临时限制令，要求洛杉矶县将那些选票分离出来。地区法院定于即将到来的周二就该动议举行听证会。司法部随后“请求”法院于周四中午前作出裁决。法院未照做后，司法部试图向美国第九巡回上诉法院对这项未作出的裁决提出上诉。这是一场在实质上极其绝望的案件中、在程序上极其绝望的尝试。
Undeterred by the legal and factual weakness of the case, DOJ asked a federal district court to issue a temporary restraining order to make Los Angeles County segregate out those ballots. The district court set a hearing on the motion for this upcoming Tuesday. DOJ then “requested” that the court rule by noon on Thursday. When it didn’t, DOJ tried to appeal the non-ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. This was a Hail Mary procedural play in a Hail Mary substantive case.
临时限制令不可上诉，且法官甚至尚未作出裁决，因此不存在可供上诉的命令。司法部正试图通过后门寻求“强制令”，即命令下级法院或其他政府官员做他们拖延不做的事。然而，加州地区法院几乎没有时间审议此事，声称其拖延不作为是对法院案件日程的惊人滥用。这不太可能得逞，但该案很快很可能会上诉至最高法院。
TROs are not appealable, and the judge has not even ruled yet, so there is no order to appeal from. DOJ is trying a back-door attempt at “mandamus,” a court order to a lower court or other government official to make them do something they have been dilatory in doing. Except, the California district court has barely had time to consider the matter, so claiming it has been dilatory is a shocking abuse of the court docket. It’s not likely to fly, but soon the case will likely end up at the Supreme Court.
就在司法部申请临时限制令的同一天，它大张旗鼓地宣布逮捕了28人，罪名是违反那部关于非公民投票的联邦法规。他们给《纽约邮报》独家机会，跟拍了一场黎明前的突击行动，动用直升机和全副武装的联邦执法人员，将一位近期刚做过六次手术、支持特朗普的老先生拘捕归案。这场政治表演是一次武力展示，旨在制造非公民投票泛滥成灾的假象。
The same day that DOJ asked for the TRO, it announced with great fanfare that it was arresting 28 people for violating that federal statute on noncitizen voting. They gave the New York Post an exclusive look at a pre-dawn raid with helicopters and armed federal officers to take into custody a Trump-supporting elderly gentleman who recently had six surgeries. This political theater was a show of force aimed at giving the impression of a scourge of noncitizen voting.
阿拉斯加州的情况甚至更离谱。周四，司法部长托德·布兰奇对记者表示，除非出现“末日场景”，否则司法部不会介入各州如何统计选票和认证选举。但就在这同一天，司法部却寻求阻止阿拉斯加联邦参议员选举获胜者的认证——该州（当然）甚至还没进行投票。司法部辩称，阿拉斯加允许第二位名为丹·沙利文的候选人与同名现任参议员及民主党人玛丽·佩尔托拉对决，某种程度上违反了联邦法律。
Things are even more bizarre in Alaska. On Thursday, Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters that DOJ would not get involved in how states tabulate votes and certify elections absent a “doomsday scenario.”But the same day, DOJ sought to block the certification of the winner in the U.S. Senate vote in Alaska, which (of course) hasn’t even held its vote. It argued that Alaska somehow was violating federal law when it allowed a second candidate named Dan Sullivan to run against the incumbent with the same name and Democrat Mary Peltola. (The federal government earlier convened a grand jury to look into criminal charges against the second Dan Sullivan.)
（联邦政府此前曾召集大陪审团，调查对第二位丹·沙利文提起刑事指控的事宜。）司法部无权决定哪些候选人可以出现在选票上。司法部试图阻止该州认证程序的唯一依据，是《全国选民登记法》序言中写道该法旨在“保护选举程序的完整性”。当然，该序言根本不赋予联邦政府任何权力。它不授予司法部决定候选人资格或阻止联邦选举认证的权力。
DOJ has no power to decide which candidates can appear on the ballot. The sole basis that DOJ asserted for trying to block the state’s certification process is the National Voter Registration Act’s preamble that reads that the act is designed to “protect the integrity of the electoral process.”That preamble of course gives no power whatsoever to the federal government to do anything. It does not give DOJ the power to determine ballot access or block certification of a federal election. The Alaska Supreme Court decided the state law ballot access question back in June, allowing the second Sullivan to appear on the ballot.
阿拉斯加州最高法院早在6月就已裁决州法律层面的候选人资格问题，允许第二位沙利文出现在选票上。
So shoddy was the DOJ’s work in the Alaska case that it made the most absurd typo possible in its prayer for relief.
司法部在阿拉斯加案中的工作如此粗糙，以至于在其诉求书中出现了最荒谬的笔误。司法部请求：被告不得认证任何可能受上述选民混淆影响的结果，待调查确定投给丹尼尔·J·沙利文的选票是否意在投给参议员沙利文。
DOJ requested: Defendants from certifying any result that may be impacted by voter confusion, as defined above, pending an investigation to determine whether votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan were meant to be cast for Senator Sullivan.
请注意，文中缺乏一个动词来明确特朗普政府实际上请求法官做什么，即发布一项“阻止”认证的禁令。
Note the lack of a verb specifying what the Trump administration is actually asking a judge to do, which is to issue an injunction “blocking” certification.
简而言之，司法部处理这些案件的并非精英律师，这些案件极有可能失败，而且会败得很惨。说这些是披着诉状外衣的新闻稿，都无法传达这些案件在法律上有多么薄弱。也许它们只是为了取悦唐纳德·特朗普的选举舞弊十字军运动，或者提醒阿拉斯加选民选票上有两个丹·沙利文。它们不是严肃的法律文书。
Suffice it to say, the best and brightest are not litigating these cases at DOJ, and they are both likely to fail and fail badly. To say these are press releases masquerading as lawsuits does not convey how weak these cases legally are. Maybe they are just meant to please Donald Trump in his voter fraud crusade, or to remind Alaska voters of the two Dan Sullivans on the ballot. They are not serious legal documents.
在十一月可能出错的许多事情中，我最担心的是司法部试图干预计票和认证过程，尤其是在阿拉斯加这样可能决定哪个党派控制美国参议院的地方。阿拉斯加的局势尤为令人恐惧。由于其复杂的投票程序、特殊的时区和偏远的地理位置，即使在正常年份，清点阿拉斯加所有选票也可能需要特别长的时间。正是这些延迟，特朗普过去曾最成功地利用它们来攻击选举，特别是2020年因新冠疫情延迟计票的选举。我特别担心司法部可能试图扣押选票或投票机。
Of the many things that could go wrong in November, I worry most about DOJ seeking to interfere with the tabulation and certification process, especially in a place like Alaska that may determine which party controls the United States Senate. The situation in Alaska is specifically frightening. Due to its complex voting procedures, strange time zone, and remoteness, in normal years it can take a particularly long time to count all of Alaska’s ballots. These types of delays are what Trump has seized on in the past to most successfully attack elections, specifically the COVID-delayed election counts of 2020. I am particularly concerned DOJ could try to seize ballots or voting machines.
但这些最新的诉讼显示，在干预选举的法律依据方面，司法部手中的牌极烂，而且打得很烂。如果这些是我的选举法学生，他们会不及格。虽然全国成千上万的律师正在正确地为应对特朗普可能引发的、挑战选举结果的联邦行动潮做准备，但司法部的极度无能让我稍微安心了一些。
But these latest lawsuits show that DOJ has an exceptionally weak hand when it comes to legal grounds for election interference, and they are playing their hand badly. If these were my election law students they would fail the course. Although thousands of lawyers are rightly preparing around the country for a potential Trump-inspired onslaught of federal actions challenging election results, the DOJ’s blazing incompetence puts me a little bit more at ease.