President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to overhaul the nation’s elections faced its first legal challenges Monday as the Democratic National Committee and a pair of nonprofits filed two separate lawsuits calling it unconstitutional.
The Campaign Legal Center and the State Democracy Defenders Fund brought the first lawsuit Monday afternoon. The DNC, the Democratic Governors Association, and Senate and House Democratic leaders followed soon after with a complaint of their own.
Both lawsuits filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ask the court to block Trump’s order and declare it illegal.
“The president’s executive order is an unlawful action that threatens to uproot our tried-and-tested election systems and silence potentially millions of Americans,” said Danielle Lang, senior director of voting rights at the D.C.-based Campaign Legal Center. “It is simply not within the president’s authority to set election rules by executive decree, especially when they would restrict access to voting in this way.”
The legal challenges had been expected after election lawyers warned some of Trump’s demands in the order, including a proof-of-citizenship requirement for voter registration and new ballot deadline rules, may violate the U.S. Constitution.
The order also asserts power that legal experts say the president doesn’t have over an independent agency. That agency, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, sets voluntary voting system guidelines and maintains the federal voter registration form.
The suits come as Congress is considering codifying a proof-of-citizenship requirement for voter registration into law, and as Trump has promised more actions related to elections in the coming weeks.