The Democratic Party is suing President Donald Trump over his sweeping executive order last week that attempted to wrest control of elections from the states.
Filed Monday by Elias Law Group on behalf of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), and four national Democratic committees – the DNC, DGA, DSCC and DCCC – the lawsuit alleges Trump’s order is an illegal attempt to control how elections are administered, a power the Constitution grants to the states and Congress. (Elias Law Group Chair Marc Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket.)
“In the United States of America, the President does not get to dictate the rules of our elections,” the lawsuit reads.
“Although the Order extensively reflects the President’s personal grievances, conspiratorial beliefs, and election denialism, nowhere does it (nor could it) identify any legal authority he possesses to impose such sweeping changes upon how Americans vote.”
The order has drawn widespread pushback from election officials and voting rights advocates who warn it could disenfranchise millions of voters. If it stands, the order could make registering to vote and voting by mail more difficult, and could make it easier for Trump to tilt elections in the GOP’s favor.
Schumer, Jeffries and other Democratic leaders said in a statement after filing the lawsuit that Trump’s order will make voting more difficult for military members serving overseas and married women who have changed their name.
“Donald Trump and DOGE are doing this as an attempt to rationalize their repeatedly debunked conspiracy theories and set the groundwork to throw out legal votes and ignore election outcomes they do not like,” the Democrats said.
Among its directives, Trump’s order commands the attorney general to “take all necessary action” against any states that count absentee or mail-in ballots received after Election Day in an effort to crack down on voting by mail.
Through the order, Trump is also attempting to assert control over the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), a bipartisan independent body created by Congress to help states improve the country’s election infrastructure.
The president has no authority under the federal law establishing the EAC to direct the commission to act. However, the order demands that the EAC require eligible voters to provide documentary proof of their citizenship when registering through a federal registration form.
The change would prevent Americans who lack easy access to documents, such as passports, from registering to vote through the national mail voter registration form, which was originally created to make registering to vote more accessible.
Trump’s order also directs the EAC to recertify all election equipment, like vote counting and ballot marking machines. Such a certification process would likely take years, and, in the meantime, elections in several states and D.C. could be disrupted, experts told Democracy Docket.
“The Executive Order seeks to impose radical changes on how Americans register to vote, cast a ballot, and participate in our democracy—all of which threaten to disenfranchise lawful voters and none of which is legal,” the lawsuit reads.
Stemming from Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud, the order is one of several steps the Trump administration has taken to undermine free and fair elections.
The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), one of the largest and oldest Hispanic and Latin-American civil rights organizations in the U.S., also challenged the order in a complaint Monday, calling it an attempt “to make it far more difficult for eligible U.S. citizens to exercise their fundamental right to vote.”