Nonprofit groups and Democrats sue Trump administration over election executive order

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 White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.

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.

Both the legal challenges draw attention to the Constitution’s “Elections Clause,” which says states — not the president — get to decide the “times, places and manner” of how elections are run. That section of the Constitution also gives Congress the power to “make or alter” election regulations, at least for federal office, but it doesn’t mention any presidential authority over election administration.

“The Constitution is clear: States set their own rules of the road when it comes to elections, and only Congress has the power to override these laws with respect to federal elections,” said Lang, calling the executive order an “unconstitutional executive overreach.”

The lawsuits also argue the president’s order could disenfranchise voters. The nonprofits’ lawsuit names three voter advocacy organizations as plaintiffs that they allege are harmed by Trump’s executive order: the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Secure Families Initiative and the Arizona Students’ Association.