Chicago – Attorney General Kwame Raoul, as part of a coalition of 19 attorneys general, today filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over an executive order President Trump signed in March, which is an unconstitutional attempt to impose sweeping voting restrictions across the country.
The executive order attempts to conscript state election officials into the president’s campaign to impose documentary proof of citizenship requirements when Americans register to vote. It also seeks to upend commonsense, well-established state procedures for counting ballots – procedures that make it easier for Americans’ voices to be heard.
“The authority to modify the rules Congress established for U.S. elections lies within Congress. Instead of imposing voting restrictions across the country, we should focus our efforts on encouraging more Americans to participate in the democratic process,” Raoul said. “I will continue to defend Illinois law, which empowers people to vote, and oppose any attempts to disenfranchise voters.”
The lawsuit, which Raoul and the coalition filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, explains that the power to regulate elections is reserved to the states and Congress. Raoul and the attorneys general ask the court to block the challenged provisions of the executive order, and declare them unconstitutional and unenforceable because the order goes beyond the scope of presidential power and is otherwise contrary to law.
The lawsuit asserts that provisions of the executive order will cause imminent and irreparable harm to the states if they are not enjoined. The challenged provisions include:
- Forcing the Election Assistance Commission to require documentary proof of citizenship on the federal mail voting registration form. The commission is an independent, bipartisan, four-member body established by Congress. It is responsible for developing the federal form, in consultation with states’ chief election officers, for voters to register to vote in federal elections. In their lawsuit, Raoul and the attorneys general underscore that Congress has never required documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote using a federal form.
- Commanding the head of each state-designated federal voter registration agency to immediately assess citizenship prior to providing a federal voter registration form to enrollees of public assistance programs. According to Raoul and the coalition, this aspect of the executive order commandeers state agencies and their personnel, forcing states to participate in the administration’s unlawful and unnecessary agenda.
- Forcing states to alter their ballot counting laws to exclude “mail-in ballots received after election day.” Consistent with federal law, members of the multistate coalition have exercised their constitutional and statutory authority to determine how to best receive and count votes that are cast by mail in federal elections. Illinois requires the counting of timely mail-in ballots received up to 14 days after election day, and many of the plaintiff states have analogous laws.
- Requiring military and overseas voters to submit documentary proof of citizenship and eligibility to vote in state elections. The Federal Post Card Application form is used by voters in the military or living abroad to register to vote in federal elections. Federal law unequivocally grants them the ability to register and cast a ballot “in the last place in which the person was domiciled before leaving the United States.” There is no requirement that this form demand documentary proof of citizenship or proof of current eligibility to vote in a particular state.
- Threatening to withhold various streams of federal funding to the states for purported noncompliance with the challenged provisions. In so doing, the executive order seeks to control plaintiff states’ ability to exercise their sovereign powers through raw executive domination, contrary to the U.S. Constitution and its underlying principles of federalism and the separation of powers.
Joining Raoul in filing the lawsuit are the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.
