The executive order of President Donald Trump that sought to review the elections of the Nation faced his first legal challenges on Monday when the National Democratic Committee and a couple of non -profit organizations presented two separate demands that called him unconstitutional.
The Campaign Legal Center and the State Democracy Defenders Fund filed the first lawsuit on Monday afternoon. The DNC, the Association of Democratic Governors and the democratic leaders of the Senate and the Chamber followed it shortly after with their own complaint.
Both lawsuits filed in the United States District Court for the Columbia district ask the Court to block Trump’s order and declare it illegal.
“The president’s executive order is an illegal action that threatens to uproot our proven electoral systems and potentially millions of Americans,” said Danielle Lang, senior director of voting rights at the DC campaign legal center. “It is simply not within the president’s authority to establish electoral rules by executive decree, especially when they would restrict access to the vote in this way.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comments.
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Legal challenges were expected after electoral lawyers warned that some of Trump’s demands in the order, including a city -city test requirement.
The order also states that legal experts say that the president does not have about an independent agency. This agency, the United States Electoral Assistance Commission, establishes voluntary voting system guidelines and maintains the Federal Voting Registry form.
The demands are presented when Congress is considering coding a citizen -proof requirement for the registration of voters in law, and as Trump has promised more actions related to elections in the coming weeks.
Both legal challenges call attention to the “electoral clause” of the Constitution, which says that the states, not the president, will decide the “times, places and way” of how the elections are executed. That section of the Constitution also gives Congress the power to “make or alter” electoral regulations, at least for the federal position, but do not mention any presidential authority on the electoral administration.
“The Constitution is clear: the states establish their own rules of the road when it comes to elections, and only Congress has the power to annul these laws regarding federal elections,” Lang said, qualifying the executive order as an “unconstitutional executive overrequal.”
The demands also argue that the president’s order could deprive the voters. The demand for non -profit organizations appoints three voter defense organizations as claimants who allege are harmed by Trump’s executive order: the Latin American Citizens League, the Secure Families initiative and the Arizona Student Association.
The DNC demand highlights the role of the controversial cost of the Government’s costs, the Government Efficiency Department.
It alleges the order exchange requirements of the order, including the instruction of Doge to cross references of federal data with the lists of state voters, violate the privacy rights of the Democrats and increase the risk of being harassed “depending on false suspicions that they are not qualified to vote.”
“This executive order is an unconstitutional power of Donald Trump that attacks the vote by mail, gives personal information to sensitive Dege and makes it difficult for states to manage their own free and fair elections,” says a statement from the plaintiffs.
Trump, one of the main extensors of electoral falsehoods, has argued that this executive order will ensure the vote against the illegal vote by non -citizens. Multiple studies and investigations in individual states have shown that non -citizens who broadcast ballots in federal elections, and a serious crime, is extremely rare.
Monday’s demands against Trump’s electoral order could be followed by more challenges. Other defenders of voting rights, including the American Union of Civil Liberties, have said that they are considering legal actions. Several general democratic prosecutors have said that they are looking closely at the order and suspect that it is illegal.
Meanwhile, Trump’s order has received praise from senior electoral officials in some Republican states that say that it could inhibit cases of electoral fraud and give them access to federal data to better maintain their voting rolls.
If the courts determine that the order can endure, it is likely that the changes Trump want to cause some headaches for both electoral administrators and voters. State electoral officials, who have already lost federal cybersecurity assistance, would have to spend time and money to comply with the order, including the purchase potentially of new voting systems and educate the voters of the rules.
The citizen proof requirement could also cause confusion or deprivation of voters’ rights because millions of eligible Americans of voting age do not have the appropriate documents available. In Kansas, which had a citizen -proof requirement for three years before he was revoked, the state expert himself estimated that almost all 30,000 people were prevented from registering to vote during the time they were in force were US citizens who had been eligible.
Monday’s demands are the last efforts to combat the wave of executive actions that Trump has taken during the first months of his second term. Federal judges have partially or completely blocked many of them, including efforts to restrict the citizenship of birth rights, prohibit transgender people of military service and stop the diversity, equity and initiatives of inclusion between federal contractors and beneficiaries of subsidies.
