Democratic leaders from 19 states filed a sweeping lawsuit Thursday to block President Donald Trump’s controversial attempt to overhaul the U.S. election system, calling it a direct assault on states’ constitutional authority to conduct their own elections.
The legal challenge – the fourth since the executive order was signed just a week ago – targets core provisions such as requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register and rejecting all mail-in ballots not received by Election Day.
“The president has no authority to impose these mandates,” the attorneys general argued in court filings. “This executive order is unconstitutional, antidemocratic and un-American.”
Trump has defended the order as necessary to fix what he calls a failure to “enforce basic and necessary election protection.” But state election officials across the country – Republican and Democrat alike – have maintained that recent elections, including the 2020 contest he lost to Joe Biden, were among the most secure in U.S. history, with no evidence of widespread fraud.
The order is the culmination of Trump’s long-standing complaints about how U.S. elections are run. After his first win in 2016, Trump falsely claimed his popular vote total would have been much higher if not for “millions of people who voted illegally.” In 2020, Trump blamed a “rigged” election for his loss and falsely claimed widespread voter fraud and manipulation of voting machines.
Trump has argued his order secures the vote against illegal voting by noncitizens, though multiple studies and investigations in the states have shown that such cases are rare.
The order has received praise from top election officials in some Republican-led states who say it could help prevent voter fraud and give them access to federal data to better maintain voter rolls.
The order also requires states to exclude any mail-in or absentee ballots received after Election Day and threatens federal funding if election officials do not comply. Some states count ballots as long as they are postmarked by Election Day or allow voters to correct minor errors on their ballots.
Forcing states to change, the suit says, would violate the broad authority the Constitution gives them to set their own election rules. It says states decide the “times, places and manner” of how elections are run.
Congress has the power to “make or alter” election regulations, at least for federal office, but the Constitution does not give the president any authority over election administration.
“We are a democracy, not a monarchy, and this executive order is an authoritarian power grab,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said the Trump administration is forcing states to comply with an unconstitutional order or lose congressionally approved funding – something he said the president has no authority to do.
“In one fell swoop, this president is attempting to undermine elections and sidestep Congress, and we’re not going to stand for it,” he said.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta called Trump’s executive order an attempt to impose “sweeping voting restrictions” across the country and disenfranchise voters.
The attorney general and secretary of state in Nevada, a key presidential battleground, defended their state’s elections as fair, secure and transparent, and objected to the president’s attempt to interfere in how they are run. Attorney General Aaron Ford praised Nevada’s automatic systems for registering voters and distributing mail ballots.
“While this order is on its face unconstitutional and illegal, it is also unnecessary,” he said.
A request for comment sent to the White House was not immediately returned.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts by the Democratic attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.
Other lawsuits filed over the order argue it could disenfranchise voters because millions of eligible voting-age Americans do not have the proper documents readily available. People are already required to attest to being citizens, under penalty of perjury, in order to vote.
Under the order, acceptable documents to prove citizenship would include a U.S. passport, a REAL ID-compliant driver’s license that “indicates the applicant is a citizen,” or a valid photo ID presented with proof of citizenship.
Democrats argue that millions of Americans do not have easy access to their birth certificates, about half do not have a U.S. passport, and married women would need multiple documents if they have changed their name. That was a complication for some women during recent town elections in New Hampshire, the first held under a new state law requiring proof of citizenship to register.
Not all REAL ID-compliant driver’s licenses indicate U.S. citizenship.
