Trump’s Election List Executive Order Faces Legal Battles: What You Need to Know

Equipped with a Sharpie, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that could potentially lead to the exclusion and disenfranchisement of eligible voters unless it is halted by the courts, as stated in a recent lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed by the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), Secure Families Initiative, the Arizona Students’ Association, Senate Democrats, and the NAACP, challenges the order titled “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections,” which President Trump signed on March 31.

The plaintiffs argue that the order is almost certain to result in “large numbers” of eligible voters being wrongly excluded from voter lists and disenfranchised due to outdated, inaccurate, or incomplete government data.

The executive order, as outlined, mandates the creation of “State Citizenship Lists” from federal citizenship and naturalization records, Social Security Administration data, SAVE data, and other relevant federal databases. It also emphasizes investigations and prosecutions related to election fraud. Additionally, Trump instructed the U.S. Postal Service to develop “uniform standards for mail-in or absentee ballot services.”

The plaintiffs contend that this initiative is not the Trump administration’s first attempt to alter the nation’s election rules, noting that previous efforts were similarly blocked by various courts. They argue that this latest attempt should be stopped as well, referencing past court interventions (source).

“Contrary to the commands of the Order, the President has no power to create a federal voter eligibility screening regime or to require the Postal Service to refuse delivery of certain mail ballots,” said a memorandum in support of a preliminary injunction to block implementation of the order.

The memo was filed Friday, the same day that DOJ lost its fifth round in a row in related efforts to compel more than 30 states to hand over “unredacted” voter rolls.

There, Rhode Island persuaded a judge that the Trump administration’s demands for “sensitive information,” like driver’s licenses and partial Social Security numbers, did not have a “factual basis” underlying them.

Questions remain, however, about what will come of the FBI’s search warrant in Fulton County, Georgia, where the government seized 2020 election ballots, tabulators, and voter rolls.

FBI Director Kash Patel over the weekend vowed 2020 election-related arrests while denying a report in the Atlantic that raised concerns about his “excessive drinking” and declared him missing in action. And now he’s suing over the report.

But just as Fulton County has argued from the start that Trump couldn’t have been clearer about his desire to “take over the voting,” the LULAC plaintiffs say Trump’s latest attempt to “usurp power over federal elections” must fail.

“Contrary to the commands of the Order, the President has no power to create a federal voter eligibility screening regime or to require the Postal Service to refuse delivery of certain mail ballots,” the memo said, citing the “imminent harm that the Order inflicts on their organizations and members.”

The plaintiffs added that the DOJ’s state voter roll project showed both the administration’s end “goal” and why an injunction is warranted.

“DOJ’s public statements confirm that its goal is not to review list maintenance procedures, but to expand federal control over elections and target voters for removal,” the filing said, claiming that plaintiffs’ own members are “likely to be incorrectly excluded from the State Citizenship List and disenfranchised as a result.”