With the midterm elections less than two weeks away, Democratic Party leaders have taken President Donald Trump’s administration to federal court, accusing it of trying to seize control of how states run their elections and of intimidating the officials who run them.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asks a judge to bar the administration from purging legally registered voters from statewide voter registration lists and from denying ballots to legally registered voters ahead of the November 3 election.
Schumer and Jeffries among the plaintiffs
The plaintiffs include Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, along with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Governors Association.
The named defendants are President Trump, the Justice Department, Attorney General Todd Blanche, the Department of Homeland Security and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
What the lawsuit claims
According to the 44-page complaint, the Justice Department and DHS have unlawfully directed states to remove suspected noncitizens from their voter rolls and have threatened election officials with criminal prosecution if they refuse. Democrats argue the administration is relying on “shoddily compiled lists” that have “crumbled upon the barest inspection,” putting eligible Americans at risk of being denied a ballot or having their votes go uncounted.
“None of this is lawful,” the complaint says. It argues that the executive branch has no authority to oversee state voter list maintenance, override state decisions about who is qualified to vote, or dictate whose ballots get set aside.
The suit also asks the court to rule that the administration illegally threatened state election officials with prosecution, which Democrats say violates the Voting Rights Act.
The filing goes further in its language about the president himself: “For over a decade now, President Donald J. Trump has bombarded the American people with lies and misinformation about American elections and voter fraud,” it says. “While these lies have been debunked at every turn, that has never deterred the President from employing them as a pretext to seize control over elections, even as courts overwhelmingly reject that effort.”
The California fight at the center
The lawsuit points to the Justice Department’s recent actions in California, where the department sued to stop state election officials from counting mail-in ballots cast by people the federal government has identified as “likely” noncitizens until their immigration status can be confirmed. According to the complaint, an October 13 Justice Department demand asked California to withhold or set aside ballots from more than 20,000 registered voters suspected of being noncitizens.
DOJ responds
The Justice Department said in a statement that election integrity is a top priority for the administration and that its actions on that front are grounded in law and are being litigated in court.
A familiar judge
The case has been assigned to Chief Judge James Boasberg, who has been vilified by the White House over rulings against the Trump administration since the start of the president’s second term.
With early voting already underway in many states, how quickly the court acts could matter as much as how it rules. The suit is the latest in a string of legal battles over the federal government’s expanding role in this year’s elections.
Reporting based on The Associated Press, The Hill and The Washington Post.