Voting rights groups file fifth lawsuit against Trump’s sweeping anti-voting order

A group of voting rights organizations has filed the fifth lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive order seeking to control mail-in voting procedures. 

The NAACP, along with Common Cause, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and Black Voters Matter, are calling Trump’s executive order “an illegal power grab seeking to control federal elections,” in their complaint filed Friday. 

They are asking courts to completely nullify Trump’s order as unenforceable, arguing that it violates several key constitutional amendments and laws governing the separation of federal and state branch powers.

Trump’s executive order asks the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to obtain sensitive voter information from states to create federal voter lists that would be used for determining who the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) can send mail-in ballots to. New policies around how the USPS collects and postmarks mail have already led to an increase in rejected mail-in ballots in California.

However, Trump calls for criminal prosecution of state officials who don’t comply with the order. 

The complaint calls this an act to “intimidate” local election officials, and to “sow chaos and confusion” among voters. 

“The Executive Order repeats the threat of prosecution or other adverse legal consequences three times for anyone—public officials, contractors, or anyone else—who does not embrace and implement the Administration’s definition of voter eligibility,” reads the complaint. “[This] is a patently illegal assertion of executive power over the administration of elections.”  

Prior to the voting rights groups’ challenge, similar lawsuits were filed by a coalition of nearly two dozen state attorneys general, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and other national Democratic organizations*, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts (LWVMA) – all arguing that Trump’s executive order is unconstitutional. 

“The executive order is unlawful, unconstitutional, and a clear overreach of executive power,” says Shaylyn Cochran, deputy executive director for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “It reflects yet another dangerous attempt by this administration to erect obstacles to the ballot and to intimidate voters. If left to stand, the executive order would upend state laws and procedures on voting, tread on the Constitution, and threaten to shut out a significant number of Black voters from the political process.”

*Democratic plaintiffs in this case are represented by the Elias Law Group (ELG). ELG Chair Marc Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket.