The Democratic National Committee sued President Donald Trump’s administration Thursday, accusing officials of quietly altering a voting postcard for Americans living abroad and making it more difficult for some citizens to register.
According to the lawsuit, the Department of Defense invoked an emergency to remove one of the form’s checkboxes. The option is generally used by prospective voters who confirm that they are U.S. citizens but have never lived in the country.
Many of those voters are children of American citizens. In 38 states, they can vote if they maintain qualifying family ties to the United States. The checkbox has been included on overseas voter postcards since 2013.
Republicans have brought legal challenges in several states seeking to block these voters, who generally favor Democrats, from participating in elections. The DNC lawsuit argues that the administration changed the postcard without following required notice procedures.
“These American citizens pay U.S. federal and state taxes, but now a years-old plan has culminated in a manufactured ‘emergency’ to justify impeding their right to vote in American elections and potentially disenfranchising them entirely,” the lawsuit states.
The Department of Defense, which oversees the postcard, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
About 11,500 Americans who had never lived in the United States were estimated to have voted from abroad in 2016. The lawsuit says that population has probably increased since then.
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Some of these voters are already registered and are expected to receive November ballots. Others may select different options identifying them as citizens who either plan to return to the United States or do not plan to do so.
The dispute comes after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth encouraged military personnel to vote in large numbers, suggesting their ballots could outweigh those cast in Democratic-leaning jurisdictions such as Detroit. The federal law that permits overseas military members to vote also requires civilians living abroad to receive the same opportunity.
Because civilians abroad who lean Democratic have outnumbered Republican-leaning military voters in recent elections, Republicans have increasingly challenged the law, known as the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, or UOCAVA. In one case, Republicans won a ruling barring ballots from overseas citizens who had never lived in North Carolina. Similar efforts have not yet prevailed in other states, including the battleground state of Michigan.
Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat, a U.S. citizen living in Munich, said the change was troubling. Her 28-year-old daughter is also an American citizen, has never lived in the United States and regularly votes from abroad. Dzieduszycka-Suinat is president of the U.S. Vote Foundation.
“If this works in slicing off a piece of the electorate,” she said, “wait until the next emergency.”
___ Associated Press writer Konstantin Toropin in Washington contributed to this report.
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