A group of defense organizations filed a lawsuit on Monday that challenged the recent executive order of Donald Trump that seeks to review the electoral system of the United States, accusing the president of trying to promulgate “illegal actions” to enforce “mandates without law.”
The demand alleges that Trump’s unilateral efforts to remodel the vote in federal elections, including requiring citizenship proof by registering and restricting voting deadlines by mail, exceeds its authority as president and threatens to strip millions of their voting rights.
“The order violates and subverts the separation of powers by throwing the law of the President to declare the electoral rules by the Executive Fiat,” the lawsuit alleged. “The order is an attack on the mandatory controls and balances that maintain the free and fair US elections.”
The lawsuit, filed at the Federal Court of DC by the Legal Campaign Center and the State Democracy Democracy Fund on behalf of a League of United Latin American citizens, the Secure Families Initiative and the Arizona Student Association, asks a federal judge to block the implementation of parts of the order and force the Trump administration to rescue any guide that issued.
He appoints several defendants, including the President’s Executive Office, Attorney General PAM Bondi and the Department of Justice, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Department of Defense, as well as the United States Electoral Assistance Commission and its commissioners, an independent government commissioner focused on election administration.
Trump’s executive order, signed last week, claimed that the United States “does not enforce basic and necessary electoral protections.” The Order instructs the Department of Justice to process electoral crimes in the States that the Administration considers that they do not comply with the Federal Law, requires that the National Security Department work with the Efficient Department of the Elon Musk Government to review the registration lists of state voters and orders the Commission for Electoral Assistance for Federal Funds if the States do not institute “uniform standards and non -nalioscriminatory” by votes. “
“According to the Constitution, state governments must safeguard US elections in accordance with federal laws that protect the vote rights of Americans and protect against dilution by illegal vote, discrimination, fraud and other forms of embezzlement and error,” the order said.
President Donald Trump talks about the press aboard Air Force One before arriving at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Florida, on March 28, 2025.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP through Getty Images
Specifically, the Executive Order requires citizenship evidence throughout the country in the form used when registered to vote, a change of current electoral laws and a provision with which voting rights experts have had problems. Documents that can be used for evidence, depending on the order, include a passport, a real identification, a military identification card or a valid federal or state identification.
But the demand indicates that the order does not accept identification documents issued by tribal governments or birth certificates as proof forms. The demand also raises questions about the approved methods, arguing that only half of the Americans have a passport and the “more” real identifications do not indicate citizenship.
Anyway, the claim suggests that the order of the order to the Electoral Assistance Commission to change the form to add the citizenship test requirement could violate the 1993 voter registration law, which according to the claim grants EAC’s “exclusive authority” to administer the form.
“According to the NVRA intention to create a simple and easy to complete registration form, the NVRA specifies that the federal form cannot” include any requirement for notarization or other formal authentication, “says the demand.
Trump’s order suggested that non -citizens can easily vote in federal elections, but experts have called non -citizens to vote for a “missing phenomenon” that is easily processed. According to a study of more than 23 million votes cast in the 2016 elections, officials identified only 30 suspected incidents of non -citizen voting, only 0.0001% of the total votes cast.
Separately, the executive order also points to the vote by mail, which makes federal funds conditioned to the states establish a deadline for the ballots per day of the elections. Trump, who was accused of multiple federal crimes for his effort to revoke the 2020 elections in cases that were removed once he was chosen, has repeatedly suggested that mail tickets have led to an increase in voting fraud.
The demand states that the provision on the tickets by mail is illegal, arguing that “the states have a great discretion and flexibility” to establish the time, place and form of federal elections under the clauses of elections and voters in the Constitution.
“Congress can promulgate electoral laws if you wish, but in the absence of a conflict with federal law, states have the power to establish and follow their own electoral laws,” says the demand.
According to the demand, seventeen states, more Washington DC, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands of the United States, have laws that allow the ballots to be counted whenever they are by mail for the day of the election and receive a certain deadline later.
“Many of these states have had such terms of receipt for many years, and Congress has refused to approve any law that dictates the deadlines of voting receipts,” says the demand.
The lawsuit indicates that Congress has “established for a long time” that the Federal Elections Day is the first Tuesday of November, in addition to establishing the date on which presidential voters must be designated, but “has left additional regulation in this area largely until the states.” The lawsuit says that the United States Supreme Court “has said that, although the votes must be cast for election day, some aspects of the electoral process, such as the tabulation of all votes, will take place naturally after the day of the elections.”
“The attorney general does not have the authority to ‘enforce’ the Statutes of the Federal Elections, and the President cannot order him to do so. Nor a State” violates “those statutes when it has a valid vote by email for the day of the elections that are received after the day of the elections if the state law allows it,” says the lawsuit.
The demand also suggests that the executive order could make citizens abroad and those who serve in the army vote. The Executive Order signed by Trump orders the Secretary of Defense to update the form used by these groups to register and request a ballot in absence, called “Federal Postcard Request”, to include a requirement of citizenship documentary evidence, as well as “ELDELLABILITY TEST TO VOTE IN THE ELECTIONS IN THE STATE IN WHICH THE VOTANT tries to vote.”
The lawsuit indicates that the law requires this form as part of the Voting Law of uniformed citizens and abroad in the absence, approved in 1986 to “protect the vote rights of Americans who serve in the Army, their families and other US citizens who live abroad.” The demand states that the changes required by the order would be “impossible given the format required by Congress.”
“Neither the President nor the Secretary of Defense have any legal authority to ignore Uocava’s legal requirement to make available such a postcard for military and foreign voters,” says the lawsuit.
Together, these provisions would have a “significant impact” on voting rights. Demand states.
LULAC members, a Hispanic and Latin American civil rights organization, for example, would be harmed if some of its members “who are eligible to vote often do not have the required citizenship documents.” The demand establishes. The organization expects efforts to register voters “collapse.”
The Arizona Student Association will be similarly damaged by the citizenship test requirement, according to the demand, although it is required when the voters are registered in the state form there.
“Even those members who can register face imminent damage. Some members will be able to obtain or access DPOC only spending a significant time, money and/or effort to do so, and will face greater difficulties in registering due to the DPOC requirement,” said the demand.
Michelle Stoddart of ABC News contributed to this report.
