Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other Democrats have sued the Trump administration over its effort to remove noncitizens from voter registration lists.
The Oct. 20 lawsuit, filed in federal court in the District of Columbia, says that the effort is based on “shoddily compiled lists of supposed noncitizens—target lists that have crumbled upon the barest inspection.”
In Nevada, for instance, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it identified nearly 16,000 noncitizens registered to vote. DHS later reduced the number to 185 voters, then “failed to substantiate even that narrower assertion after Nevada officials indicated that every single one of those voters appeared to be citizens,” the lawsuit states.
In another example, the administration asked California not to count ballots from more than 20,000 registered voters over citizenship concerns, but the Los Angeles County Registrar’s “cursory sample review” of the over 7,000 individuals with a Los Angeles address on the list indicated that more than 25 percent listed a U.S. birthplace, the plaintiffs said.
“None of this is lawful. The Executive Branch enjoys no authority to superintend state voter list maintenance, to supplant state determinations of who is qualified to vote, or to dictate who gets a ballot or whose ballot gets segregated—Congress has kept that responsibility with the States, subject only to a narrow civil enforcement power the administration has declined to invoke during its recent efforts,” the Democrats said.
“Nor does the Executive Branch get to decide which voters appear on a State’s voter rolls, which registered voters can receive a ballot, or whose ballots are counted.”
Plaintiffs include Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
The lawsuit alleges violations of the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act. It asks the federal court to find that the president and other officials unconstitutionally demanded states remove registered voters and threatened states with legal action if they failed to comply. The court should block the officials from continuing to issue such threats, they said.
Defendants include Trump, the Department of Justice, and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
“Democrats and the media continue to dismiss concerns about voter fraud; the Trump Administration is taking decisive lawful action to protect our elections, including prosecuting election crimes, strengthening election infrastructure security, and protecting vulnerable voters from fraud and coercion,” Lauren Bis, a White House spokeswoman, told The Epoch Times in an email.
She pointed to how the administration has been charging illegal immigrants and other noncitizens over voting or registering to vote in federal elections and accused Democrats of opposing commonsense election-security measures.
“The Justice Department enforces federal election law, and election integrity is a top priority. Every action the Department has taken to protect the integrity of this year’s elections is grounded in the law and being litigated in open court,” a Department of Justice spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.
“Ensuring that only eligible citizens vote and that every lawful ballot is counted a requirement of federal law.”
The administration also sued California earlier this month, alleging the state did not take any serious action to verify the citizenship of more than 20,000 individuals whom the federal government said were “likely noncitizens.”
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services identified the people before a secondary review by Homeland Security Investigations, part of DHS, according to court documents.
California mails ballots to all registered voters.
Government lawyers said a federal judge should block California from counting mail-in ballots from the likely noncitizens until their citizenship status can be determined.
“State-facilitated voter fraud is unacceptable in the United States of America,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement.
