WASHINGTON — With the midterm elections two weeks away, Democratic Party leaders are filing a lawsuit in federal court to stop President Donald Trump’s administration from usurping states’ authority to administer elections or attempting to intimidate state and local election officials into complying with illegal demands.
The suit, filed Tuesday in Washington, seeks a court order prohibiting the administration from removing legally registered voters from statewide voter registration lists or from denying ballots to legally registered voters.
The plaintiffs, including Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, are also seeking a ruling that the administration illegally threatened state election officials with lawsuits before the Nov. 3 election.
The lawsuit cites the Justice Department’s recent actions in California, where it sued to block state election officials from counting absentee ballots cast by people the federal government has identified as “probable” noncitizens until their immigration status can be confirmed.
“For more than a decade now, President Donald J. Trump has bombarded the American people with lies and disinformation about the United States elections and voter fraud,” the suit states. “Even though these lies have been debunked at every turn, that has never deterred the president from using them as a pretext to take control of the election, even though the courts overwhelmingly reject this attempt. »
The Justice Department said in a statement that election integrity is a top priority for the administration and that the department’s actions in this area are based on the law and legal litigation.
The trial of the Democratic leaders was entrusted to Chief Justice James Boasberg, vilified by the White House for his decisions against the Trump administration since the start of the Republican president’s second term.
Other plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Governors Association. Its named defendants are Trump, the Justice Department, Attorney General Todd Blanche, the Department of Homeland Security and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
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