A coalition of Democrats has sued the Trump administration over alleged attempts to interfere in state-run elections and threats to prosecute local election officials, setting up another legal battle less than two weeks before Election Day.
The Democratic National Committee, its congressional and Senate campaign arms, several prominent lawmakers and other plaintiffs filed the lawsuit in a federal court in Washington, DC, late Tuesday.
The complaint asks a federal judge to block what the plaintiffs describe as efforts by the Trump administration to force states to remove voters from registration lists, segregate certain ballots and “threaten state and local election officials for doing nothing more than their lawful duties”.
ABC News said it had contacted the White House for comment.
The Justice Department has repeatedly defended its actions as part of efforts to protect the integrity of the election system.
Dispute over voter registration lists
The Trump administration has clashed with officials in California, Nevada and other states in recent weeks over allegations of noncitizen voting.
The Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security have accused several states of knowingly allowing noncitizens to remain on voter registration lists and refusing to cooperate in removing them.
However, states argue that the administration’s actions, taken just weeks before the midterm elections, amount to federal overreach and are intended to undermine public confidence in election results.
The Democrats’ lawsuit criticises the administration for pressuring states to remove ineligible voters using what it describes as “shoddily compiled lists of supposed noncitizens — target lists that have crumbled upon the barest inspection”.
California questions federal voter list
In court documents filed on Tuesday, two officials from the Los Angeles County registrar’s office presented findings from a preliminary analysis of 200 individuals selected from a Justice Department list of about 20,000 people accused of being ineligible to vote.
The officials found that nearly 40% of the 200 individuals appeared to have been born in the United States, which they said was strong evidence of citizenship. They also found that 71.2% of the records showed no voting history.
In a statement to ABC News on Tuesday, Justice Department spokesperson Kiersten Pels accused California of “willful blindness”.
“California cannot facilitate the violation of federal law,” Pels said. “We notified California that noncitizens are likely registered to vote, and we asked the state to independently verify the citizenship of any ballots cast by people on a list that we provided. It refused to do so. Federal law doesn’t permit this willful blindness.”
The lawsuit also accuses President Donald Trump of repeatedly spreading false claims about election fraud and using them to justify efforts to take control of elections.
“For over a decade now, President Donald J. Trump has bombarded the American people with lies and misinformation about American elections and voter fraud,” the complaint states.
“While these lies have been debunked at every turn, that has never deterred the President from employing them as a pretext to seize control over elections, even as courts overwhelmingly reject that effort.”
