By Luc Cohen
(Reuters) – The Democratic Party on Monday asked a U.S. court to block Republican President Donald Trump’s executive order overhauling the election system, arguing the changes risked denying eligible U.S. citizens the right to vote.
In a lawsuit against the Trump administration filed in Washington, D.C. federal court, the Democratic National Committee said Trump exceeded his authority in the March 25 order by requiring voters to prove they are U.S. citizens, preventing states from counting mail-in ballots received after Election Day, and threatening to take federal funding away from states that do not comply.
“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,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed by longtime Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias and other lawyers at his firm.
U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer and U.S. Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the leaders of the Democratic minorities in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, respectively, are also plaintiffs in the case.
A Justice Department spokesperson said, “The Department of Justice has vigorously defended President Trump’s executive actions, including the order to Preserve and Protect the Integrity of American Elections, and will continue to do so.”
The Trump administration has previously argued the order would prevent foreign nationals from interfering in U.S. elections.
Trump has long questioned the U.S. electoral system and continues to falsely claim that his 2020 loss to Democratic President Joe Biden was the result of widespread fraud. The president and his Republican allies also have made baseless claims about widespread voting by non-citizens, which is illegal and rarely occurs.
In their lawsuit, the Democrats said the U.S. Constitution empowers individual states and Congress – not the president – to control how federal elections are conducted. They said this was critical to making sure presidents do not seek to change election rules to favor themselves.
“The Framers of our federal Constitution foresaw that self-interested and self- aggrandizing leaders might seek to corrupt our democratic system of government to expand and preserve their own power,” the lawsuit read.
Earlier on Monday, voting rights groups including the Campaign Legal Center and State Democracy Defenders Fund brought a separate legal challenge to the executive order.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Edwina Gibbs and Nick Zieminski)
