Democrats sue to block Trump admin from threatening the midterms

In a new lawsuit, Democrats are asking a federal court to block President Donald Trump and his administration from threatening state and local election officials with criminal prosecution and from pressuring states to remove voters from the rolls.

Those threats “intimidate and coerce election officials who aid and urge registered voters to cast ballots, as well as lawful voters—particularly naturalized citizens—who seek to exercise their most fundamental right,” they allege.

The suit comes just a week after Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) sued California and Los Angeles County when election officials refused to set aside 20,000 voters’ ballots based on unverified claims they were noncitizens.

The plaintiffs — three national Democratic organizations, the Nevada Democratic Party, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) and a California voter who is a naturalized citizen — filed suit Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against Trump, Attorney General Todd Blanche, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, the DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

States have traditionally been responsible for running elections, but the Democrats note that Trump has called on Republicans to “nationalize the voting” and advocated for federal legislation that would impose more control over state elections. 

The Democrats’ suit cites Trump’s recent threat that California election officials would “go to jail for a long period of time” as an example of a “pattern of intimidation” that is “meant to frighten officials into complying with the administration’s demands to unlawfully remove voters from the rolls.”

It also emphasizes that the administration has repeatedly made unsubstantiated allegations that state voters are illegally registered, claiming, for example, that 16,000 Nevada voters were noncitizens. DHS later narrowed that claim to 185 voters it said it had confirmed were noncitizens, but Nevada officials said their records showed all 185 were citizens and that DHS had provided “nothing of substance to suggest otherwise.”

All those actions violate Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act, which bans voter intimidation, the complaint argues. The Democrats specifically contend that threatening election officials who help registered voters cast and count ballots constitutes prohibited intimidation or coercion under the law.

With the midterms fast approaching, the Trump administration has rapidly ramped up its voter-suppression efforts. 

In addition to its lawsuits against states, the White House has transformed the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database, which traditionally has been used to verify the immigration status of people applying for government benefits, into a highly inaccurate tool for purging alleged noncitizens from voter rolls. 

When Texas used the SAVE database to identify 2,724 potential noncitizen voters last year, over 20% were later confirmed to be citizens.

The Democratic plaintiffs point to federal courts’ repeated repudiations of the White House’s actions and Congress’ refusal to enact Trump’s agenda as evidence that the president is acting illegally.

“Thwarted in Congress and the courts, the administration has now simply disregarded the tools Congress provided it and fashioned its own cudgels instead,” the complaint reads. “It once more falls to the judiciary to staunch the resulting lawlessness.”

*The Elias Law Group (ELG) represents the Democrats in this case. ELG Firm Chair Marc Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket.