Democrats have asked a federal judge to act quickly in their lawsuit aimed at stopping the White House from threatening state and local election officials with criminal charges and demanding that states remove voters from voter rolls.*
In a filing Friday, Democrats asked U.S. District Judge James Boasberg to expedite discovery — the pre-hearing exchange of evidence between litigants — given the fast-approaching election. They are looking for communications in which the Trump administration requires — or plans to require — that election officials remove certain registered voters from the voter rolls, refuse to issue ballots to individual voters or fail to count ballots cast by certain voters.
Democrats are “seriously considering seeking emergency relief regarding the allegations alleged in their complaint, which implicate both the fundamental right to vote and the proper grant of constitutional authority with respect to the administration of elections,” the plaintiffs wrote, requesting responses from the defendants by October 28.
The plaintiffs – a group of party organizations and elected officials led by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee – sued President Donald Trump, Attorney General Todd Blanche, Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Tuesday over the administration’s attempts to “intimidate and coerce election officials who assist and urge registered voters, as well as legal voters, to vote” particularly naturalized citizens – who seek to exercise their most fundamental rights. It’s true.
The administration has not yet filed a response to the initial complaint.
The suit comes just a week after Trump’s Justice Department sued California and Los Angeles County when election officials refused to void the ballots of 20,000 voters based on unverified claims that they were not citizens.
On Thursday, the DOJ also asked Alaska to preemptively block the Senate results if the incumbent Republican narrowly lost. Legal experts have called both cases unfounded and procedurally flawed.
*The Elias Law Group (ELG) represents the Democrats in this case. Marc Elias, president of ELG, is the founder of Democracy Docket.
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