A voter places a mail-in ballot in the mailbox outside the Chester County Government Center in West Chester, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday, November 5, 2024. (Photo by Peter Hall/Pennsylvania Capital-Star)
A dozen Republican attorneys general are trying to defend President Donald Trump’s mail-in voting order against legal challenges from Democrats.
GOP officials, led by Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, argued in multiple court filings Monday and Tuesday in response to Democrats’ lawsuits that the Order dated March 31st provides states with “optional resources” to secure their elections and does not jeopardize the right to vote.
States “want access to this resource so that they can verify the accuracy of their own voter registration lists. This flow of information between federal and state agencies is a common and critical feature of our federal system,” the Republican officials wrote a court document.
The attorneys general of Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas joined Hanaway.
The order directs the postmaster general to propose rules that would prevent the U.S. Postal Service from delivering ballots to or from voters who are not on lists of approved absentee voters provided by states. Democrats and postal law experts said the Postal Service has no authority over elections.
“The Constitution and multiple court decisions make it clear: The President does not have the authority to issue an executive order that attempts to undermine the ability of states to hold their own elections,” said more than 100 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives wrote in a letter to Trump on Monday.
Trump’s order also directs the Department of Homeland Security to compile lists of eligible U.S. citizens to vote in every state. Democrats claim the Trump administration is creating an unauthorized national voter roll, even though the U.S. Constitution gives states responsibility for conducting federal elections.
The Democratic National Committee, top Democratic lawmakers and Democratic attorneys general and secretaries of state everyone complained to block the order, as did voting rights groups. Republican attorneys general are trying to intervene in these lawsuits.
The GOP officials argue that Democrats have no standing to challenge the order’s postal provisions and that their objections are premature because the Postal Service has not adopted recent rules for mail-in ballots.
The order only “directs” the Postal Service “to begin rulemaking – it does not directly regulate the states and it does not directly limit anyone’s right to vote,” according to a court filing from the state’s attorneys general.
The executive order marked Trump’s latest attempt to seize power over federal elections. A previous order that would require voters to prove their citizenship was blocked in court. Legislation to introduce such a requirement has stalled in the U.S. Senate.
The Justice Department has also sued 30 states and the District of Columbia over access to unredacted state voter lists that contain sensitive personal information, including driver’s licenses and some Social Security numbers. While federal courts have so far rejected these lawsuits, at least a dozen states have voluntarily released the data.
The DOJ plans to do this Pass the information on to Homeland Securitywhich will apply a computer program to search for possible non-citizen voters.
